Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 20th October 2022
“For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.” (2 Corinth. 3:9-10). The New Testament is the ministration of righteousness, and it excels in glory than the Old Testament which is the ministration of condemnation or death. However, if Paul compared the New Testament with death and condemnation, it tells us that death or condemnation here is a kind of glory.
“and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:” (2 Corinth. 3:13). This means that the end of Old Testament is that it would be abolished. It has to be abolished because of its limited strength in dealing with death.
The Old Testament was a testament ordained by the hand of an angel. “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” (Gal. 3:19). The law of Moses was handed down to reveal transgression. Sin was not imputed or counted to men until the law came. There has to be a judgment for sin to be discovered. In those days, the judgment that could discover sin to a measure was the law of Moses.
The law was ordained, delivered, or given by angels to a man (that is, Moses), and that is what made him a mediator. So the Old Testament was a testament of angels. This is because the laws of that testament have their representation in the conversation of angels which Lucifer once broke.
“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:1-3). These commandments have their representation in the angels. God adapted the testament of angels for man. The effect of that ministration can be seen in the manna that the children of Israel ate.
When the Old Testament (or ministration) was being prepared, they also took part in the food of angels. Manna was the corn of heaven. This means that angels too eat (Psa. 78:24-25). So what the children of Israel ate is a substance that they could put in their mouth and it’s called the corn of heaven.
There is this religious idea that many people have about the realm of the spirit, and we are therefore clouded by darkness. Angels are men, but men of another world. The word “spirits” does not refer to something spooky; spirits are entities and they are intelligent. The operations of these spirits are usually around men. They are real but God did not give man the optical eyes to sight them. The realm of the spirit is much more real than what we are seeing physically. The visible realm is more of an illusion. The invisible is more real than the visible.
Every realm has its visibility and invisibility. The invisibility of any realm is stronger than its visibility. The visibility of any realm is subject to change but it is in the invisibility that we hold the power to change things in the visible. The angels’ food that the children of Israel ate was physical but it was from an invisible realm. They were commanded not to store the manna for tomorrow; they should finish what they could per time. One of the laws of angels is that they do not think of tomorrow. Death is what makes us think of tomorrow or teaches us to store in barns.
Man was allowed to take angels’ food but they were not told to store up for tomorrow. However, man lost faith. It is lack of faith or a conversation of fear that makes us store against tomorrow. By doing this, the children of Israel brought the meal of heaven into the realm of death and it decayed. The meal came into man’s world and man transgressed the law of a heavenly meal through a sense of death.
The manna that fell was not air but a substance, and it is called the food of angels. This means that they partook of the testament (or covenant) of angels. The New Testament is not also without food. Breaking bread and drinking wine is a celebration of the New Testament. It represents something in the spirit. It is a token but it can link us to the real thing.
The laws given in Exodus 20 have what they mean in the conversation of angels. They represent something in the order of angels. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:” (Exodus 20:3-4). It means it is possible to make a graven image unto oneself. God knew what sin could hew out and that was why He gave those commandments. God has His image and it is only transferable by the revelation of His word.
There is a need to get the accurate image for the accurate glory. Every other image that is not the accurate image has its own glory. The reason for image is for glory. Companies spend a lot of money to create a corporate image for themselves. If a man makes any other image that is not God’s image, it will attract the wrong glory. Satan made death when he made another image outside God’s. The god or image that Satan made was himself. It is possible to have a false image of oneself just like some people have a false estimation of themselves. This is why some men will feel like they are women in a man's body. They have a wrong image or perception of themselves.
The image that Satan created which he also gave to man is what makes man lofty, haughty, and proud. Image is not just a physical mould of a thing; we can make images by our thoughts. Imagination means image nations. The soul naturally has the capacity to make images.
The world preaches image-making by making statements like “being the architect of one’s future”. The world wants every man to craft his own future outside God’s plan. When we craft our future, we are making images. Satan took thought for tomorrow when he said he would be like the Most High (Isa. 14:14). We don’t know how long Satan had that thought running for. When we think about a thing for a long time, it is only a matter of time before we begin to behave like what we are thinking.
The strength of every soul is in its ability to make or create images. Those images will stand before the man and he worships them even when no one else is seeing them. God sees such images and Satan also sees them. Satan helps to fortify such wrong images of the soul. The only image that is allowed for a man to make is Christ. However, Christ cannot be made without revelation. A man cannot, just by thinking on his own, make the image of Christ because Christ is not an idol. God has to keep visiting a man and downloading substances for making the image of Christ to him. As the man receives and keeps those substances, Christ is made in his soul.
The image of the Son is an image that a man cannot make on his own because it is the Lord that has substances for that image. The substances are treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and they are hidden in Christ (Col. 2:3). A man cannot make God’s image by himself, it is God who will make it. God is an image maker. If a man tries to make God’s image by himself, he will trap or attract a glory called death.
God’s name is called jealous (Exodus 34:14). One of the characteristics of gods is that they are jealous. This is why Mammon will not allow a man to serve God; Mammon is also a god. The evil eyes that Satan gave man through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil help men to craft his image. Mammon is the substance for making image. So a man cannot serve God and serve mammon (Matt. 6:24).
“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7). The Lord’s name is hallowed, it should be separated from vanity. “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” (2 Timothy 2:19). Iniquity here is vanity. The name of the Lord is supposed to make a soul depart from vanity and not hold on to it. To hold the name of the Lord in vain is to hold it for vanity. Some people can hold the name of the Lord to ransom, all for the sake of vanity.
The testament that had the law of Moses as its law had its level of consecration, just as faith has different levels of consecration. The New Testament faith has different strengths or levels of substances. Faith can be known by its substance (Heb. 11:1).
The commandments given in Exodus 20 have different interpretations or demands in the different strata of the angelic. Cherubims excel at keeping these commandments more than the rest of the angels. This means that they keep it more highly because of the better substance given to them. We should keep the commandments of God more highly or at the rate of the new light that is shining.
Death came about when a cherubim who was keeping God’s commandment at the highest level of the present fell. This means that he took the highest substance of the present order and made death out of it. So when it came to the realm of men, what was given to Moses was already done away it. What was given to Moses was glorious, but the end of that ministration was not glorious because it is to be abolished.
“But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:” (2 Corinth. 3:7). The ministration of death does not refer to a physical grave. The death here was glorious. It is called the ministration of death because it was a ministration or testament in a very high angel who fell. The height of Satan’s fall is the level of its death.
Inside all cherubims is every other realm of the angelic. Therefore, corrupting other angelic realms was easy. It was not all seraphims nor works in every place of dominion that followed Satan, but all men died. What Satan showed Eve that made her eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was glory, yet it was death. Death will not pull a man if it is not glorious. We fight temptations because it is glorious. Glory pulls, it attracts. There is something about the soul and glory. Temptation is not temptation if there is no glory in it.
There are levels of temptation; even works of the flesh promise pleasure but this pleasure is a trap of death. The temptation of Jesus was a temptation from the devil himself. The devil supervised that temptation. Satan gave Jesus an idea of how He can use the things that God has given to Him. Satan understood that Jesus had been receiving revelations from the Father, so he asked Jesus to shine with those revelations. Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and told Him to show signs and wonders. However, the Father had commanded Jesus not to show himself. Temptation is actually glory.
The New Testament has an end just as the Old Testament had its end, but the children could not see the end of that which is to be abolished. The end of a testament is its glory. The end of the Old Testament is a glory and this glory is death. The New Testament also has an end and the end is the glory of God. The glory of God is that which remains. The glory of the New Testament is one that excels; it is excellent glory. Other testaments had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory of the New Testament that excels.
The glory of the New Testament is exceeding. It is a more excellent glory. Death is glorious and certainly, nothing can deal with it if such is not more glorious.
Men wondered at the beast because he came with great promises, one of which is the promise of being like God (Rev. 13:4-5). Satan is fighting and lying to men that they will be like God. The godhood that Satan is painting to men is that of ‘living long’ and he is propagating this through science and technology. This is one of the lying wonders that Satan is selling to man, telling him that his consciousness can be transferred into another body (a machine). Man is more than consciousness; Satan is lying to men.
The end of the New Testament is glory and the glory is one that abides and excels. The God of the New Testament is a God of glory. God is the God of glory and the Father of glory. God’s glories are unending. Arriving at glory is an arrival into a world that is unending. We are changed from glory to glory, from everlasting to eternal glory (2 Corinth. 3:18).
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield: The LORD will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84:11). God said to Abraham, “I am thy shield and exceeding great reward” (Gen. 15:1). The sun is the exceeding great reward; it is eternal while the shield is everlasting. The Lord God is both everlasting and eternal. Sun is glorious, not just because it’s shining; sun is jealous. Anything that is glory is jealous.
The Lord God wants to be both sun and shield to us. Glory speaks of reward but the Lord God also wants to be our shield, which is everlasting. God wants to be our life because it is only everlasting life that can inherit His glory. The Lord will not just give us glory, He will give grace. We receive grace for grace and this will build us for glory.
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield: The LORD will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84:11). Those who walk uprightly are those who have become Christ; God will satisfy them with good things so that their youth is renewed (Psa. 103:5). When we come into everlasting life, our youthfulness is renewed. Whenever we are coming to God and our youth is being renewed, we are returning to the womb of the morning (Psa. 110:3).
Blessings!
Summary
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Apostle Paul referred to the New Testament as the ministration of righteousness, and the Old Testament as the ministration of condemnation or death (2 Corinth. 3:9). However, if Paul compared the glory of the New Testament with that of the Testament of death and condemnation, it tells us that death or condemnation here is also a kind of glory.
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However, the end of the Old Testament is that it should be abolished because of its limitation in dealing with death (2 Corinth. 3:13). It was a testament delivered or given by angels to a man (that is, Moses), and that is what made him a mediator.
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The Old Testament was a testament of angels (Gal. 3:19). It is called a ministration of death because it was a ministration or testament in a very high angel who fell. The height of Satan’s fall is the level of its death.
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What Satan showed Eve that made her eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was glory, yet it was death (Gen. 3:5-6). Death will not pull a man if it is not glorious. We fight temptations because it is glorious. Glory pulls; it attracts. Temptation is glory.
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The end of the Old Testament is a glory and this glory is death. The New Testament also has an end and the end is the glory of God (2 Thess. 2:14). The glory of God is that which remains; it is one that excels. Death is glorious and certainly nothing can deal with it if such a thing is not more glorious.
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The end of the New Testament is glory, and the glory is one that abides and excels. The God of the New Testament is both a God of glory and the Father of glory. God’s glories are unending. A man’s arrival in glory is arrival into an unending world. We are changed from glory to glory; from everlasting to eternal glory (2 Corinth. 3:18).