Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Anamnesis Prayer Meeting - Week 3 Day 2
Date: Tuesday, 22nd November 2022
"He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? [16] And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:15-16). Jesus was the Son of the living God. At this point, He was already a Son and was about to enter another level of sonship. Glory is sonship and a measure of it was given to Jesus at Jordan; but while at transfiguration, He was given another measure of glory (2 Pet. 1:17).
Jesus was receiving glory while on earth. He did not receive the same glory at transfiguration that He had previously received at Jordan. At Jordan, Jesus was 30 years old but at transfiguration, He must have grown more to come to a place where God announced His ministry of sonship again. God said, “...This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” (Matt. 17:5). The world of 'My beloved Son' is where God was well pleased in Jesus. Being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, the Father authorized Him to be heard. The first proclamation at Jordan did not carry this kind of authorization (Matt. 3:17).
The same phrase 'to day' that Hebrews 5:5 uses to describe the day Jesus was begotten is the same phrase Jesus used on the cross when He said “... Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). By saying ‘paradise’, Jesus was not referring to Him being taken to Heaven. Paradise is Jesus' bosom. Recall that Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom which was Abraham's paradise (Lk. 16:22-25).
Hell is a real place, regardless of the arguments of the intellectuals of this world. Many Christians remain in disobedience whilst assuming that they will still arrive in heaven regardless. If such continue in their evil ways, God can send them to hell (1 Cor. 5:5). If a soul is hellish, he will go to hell. There are certain Old Testament saints who were never born again but went to heaven. They escaped hell by the things they did in their souls through obedience to the laws of their conscience. For example, Abraham walked by faith and lived above hell; therefore, hell could not take him. Hell had no justification to hold Abraham because he was a living man.
The thief on the cross said, “... Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Lk. 23:42). This kingdom does not refer to entrance into Jesus’ reign on the earth; rather, it is the sphere of Jesus’ triumph over death. The one who was dying is a King; so when He was rising from the dead, He was entering His kingdom.
Thieves are one of the most difficult people to save. Two thieves hung on the cross with Jesus and while one railed at him, the other had the fear of God (Lk. 23:39-43). The second thief must have taken faith in Jesus to have called him Lord and must have had a revelation that Jesus was a King. Thus, Jesus answered him, “To day, shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43). Paradise is real and, by the phrase ‘to day’, Jesus was referring to the resurrection day when He was raised from the dead, not referring to His body. Resurrection first occurred in Jesus’ spirit and soul before His body, which is His house. The outward man cannot work without the spirit and the soul.
While it is possible to separate the spirit and soul for them to walk independently, there is a cord that puts them together which was put there by God. It is only the word that can separate the soul and spirit (Heb. 4:12); even death cannot separate the soul from the spirit. When the human spirit died in the beginning, God put a code in the soul that makes it undetachable from the spirit and is also responsible for bringing the spirit back to God.
While the spirit is timeless, the soul is time-bound. The soul operates in the realm of time of creation. This time is not natural timing, but the time that God gave creation. Every soul is everlasting and has time, but the strength of the spirit is different from the strength of the soul. The spirit does not know tomorrow, months or years. Seasons are for the soul but not the spirit which is a kind or copy of eternity. The spirit understands eternity and can be taught eternity.
The spirit is called ‘pneuma’ while the soul is called ‘naphesh’. ‘Naphesh’ is breath and pneuma is wind. It takes many breaths to get wind because breath is lighter. So, the soul is like a slice of the spirit man. God constructed the soul in that way so that there can be a manifestation of communication to a lower realm of an entity called man. This is because the spirit man can hardly relate to time, but the soul can because it is similar to time. This humbles the spirit to consider time and accommodate it.
The souls of angels are so fast. The angels who are spirits are spirits in their souls. The weight of the soul of a cherub is greater than a seraph’s, while mights, dominions and principalities have a much lower soul. Jesus is better than angels because He has a greater capacity of soul. Every spirit is an 'east being', while the soul is a 'northern being'. The spirit is an easterner; he is an eternity kind. Adam qualified for Eden, the garden in the east, even though his soul was not close to Eden because his spirit could relate with eternity.
Eternity differs. One can have eternity but not have Eternal Life. The present heaven is everlasting but the new heaven is not everlasting life but eternity. Something can be eternity but not Eternal Life. The new heaven is eternal but does not have Eternal Life. Similarly, the lake of fire is eternal but not Eternal Life.
Right in hell, Jesus' spirit and soul sat on the throne before He entered back into His body. When Jesus ascended to heaven, the Father did not have to make Him better (Heb. 1:4). He triumphed over death and destroyed Satan through death at resurrection. The glory of the Father raised Him up. When Jesus was raised, He was raised to the highest capacity; He attained the world to come and more. Jesus is higher than the world to come; He is better than the new heaven and the new earth.
At resurrection, Jesus was higher than when He walked the earth. Jesus destroyed hell by using His kingdom. Jesus has His own dominion. Jesus resurrected and brought His dominion out of the grave. The thief that was with Jesus on the cross was granted a place with Him in paradise. Jesus heaved paradise and gave it to Abraham's bosom. This is needed because Abraham's bosom could not ascend to heaven. Jesus closed the paradise of Abraham and raised a better one.
Abraham's paradise was too weak to ascend but it could serve as an interim portal for patriarchs and saints until Jesus came. Jesus had to come to take up the sons of Adam who sinned. 1 Peter 3:19 says that “... He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient…”. Some men, who obeyed God for a while but later went on to be with the daughters of men, went into disobedience. These were not ordinary men and only an Adam could preach to them. Jesus had to preach to them because they had to believe,
At the time of the preparation of the ark, some spirits were in disobedience. These men did not disobey before the building of the ark but during the building of the ark. The ark could not take all men; it was designed only for some. God would not harvest a man whose thought is evil continually. The sons of Adam who chose wives for themselves strived with the Holy Ghost and left God's presence. Man was fast going into flesh. God wants to save man from being flesh and He brought the revelation of the ark quickly for the purpose of saving souls. Anyone who entered into the ark would cease from being flesh.
The ark is an obedience for salvation and those who opposed it did not gain entrance. Anyone who enters the ark would be confined to a kind of life, that is salvation. The ark is an ark of faith and those sons that chose to not enter did not want to be hedged around, they did not want to live by faith. These men were marrying and giving in marriage, eating and drinking (Matt. 24:38); these are the things that characterized flesh. There is nothing wrong with marriage, but the marriage of these sons to the daughters of men was quite peculiar because it was tying men to the earth.
Abraham's preaching could not touch these men. They had lived long before Abraham and they had a higher word. However, Jesus was teaching them the word of the beginning; He was teaching them the Kingdom. There are things the sons of God knew and Abraham was not in their pedigree. Sons of God like Methuselah, Seth, Enos, Abel will not be found in Abraham’s bosom; they all went to heaven. They all went to heaven because they were in heaven and stayed in heaven. To be a son of God, one must be in heaven.
The Son of man who is in heaven is actually God's Son (John 3:13). Man was made to be in heaven. Adam was in heaven even while he was walking here. Many men need to go to heaven. God wants us to enter heaven. There are open heavens over us and we must desire to enter heaven. People are being taken from among men and this involves customizing them into a heavenly life that God has. Our High Priest is higher than all other heavens (Heb. 7:26).
If we are not careful, we also can fall from our heavenly estate because of things that lure us. The sons of Adam fell and left the heaven of the earth because of the daughters of men. The word ‘woman’ means paradise. A woman is a heaven to a man. God brought Adam's heaven out of him, which is the woman. God was thinking of paradise when He made the woman. The only thing higher than the woman in Eden was the tree of life.
Heaven is holy, harmless, undefiled and is separate from sinners. Any heaven that is unholy, harms, can defile and has sin is leaven; it is a bad heaven. There is a heaven that Jesus is. It is the Heaven that the Father is and that is the heaven He wants to give to many. There are places in Christ Jesus; there are a whole lot of heavens in Him (Eph. 1:3). Gentleness and meekness are heavenly things, whereas pride is a hellish thing; it is from beneath.
What God used in making firmaments is a composition of many things that make it firm. There are things that make the firmament firm and these are various materials with their splendor and colors. Meekness in the spirit is diamond. Gentleness and a quiet spirit are stones that speak of precious things that should be in people. When God gives heaven to a woman, she would be an attractive force. When God gives heaven to a man, He would be harmless.
Heaven is wise because wisdom is the lift of every heaven. When we are not wise, we lack judgment. When God is making heaven, He does so with a high resolution of judgment. Love should be in knowledge and should abound in judgment. The judgment quantity of a love shows how high the love is. When judgment has touched meekness, it has touched the meekness of heavens.
There is the meekness of the earth and the meekness of the heavens. Christ is the meekness of the earth. The heavens have another kind of meekness. Judgment makes heavens. Judgment heaves, lifts, promotes and it becomes justice and righteousness. Judgment is the many marriages of wisdom that have a successful interplay to open to us a new era in a high place. When one is a judge, such a person is like heaven.
What makes a son is an heavenly promotion that God has given by wisdom. There is no glory without judgment. This is why a spiritual man cannot be judged because he is already higher (1 Cor. 2:15). God would give us a miracle in our thought arena to access these things. Light comes by hearing and by faith. We must therefore keep hearing. We are given a wonderful opportunity to, by hearing, have our states changed. God does not give heaven to unfaithful men who would merchandise it. He would give it to faithful men. Therefore, those who would preach these things would be faithful.
Blessings!
Summary
1. (Matthew 16:15-16). Glory is sonship and a measure of it was given to Jesus at Jordan; but while at transfiguration, He was given another measure of glory (2 Pet. 1:17). Jesus was receiving glory while on earth. He did not receive the same glory at transfiguration that He had previously received at Jordan.
2. At Jordan, Jesus was 30 years old but at transfiguration, He must have grown more to come to a place where God announced His ministry of sonship again. (Matt. 17:5). The first proclamation at Jordan did not carry this kind of authorization (Matt. 3:17).
3. Hell is a real place, regardless of the arguments of intellectuals of this world. Many Christians remain in disobedience whilst assuming that they will still arrive in heaven regardless (1 Cor. 5:5). If a soul is hellish, he will go to hell.
4. There are certain Old Testament saints who were never born again but went to heaven. They escaped hell by the things they did in their souls through obedience to the laws of their conscience.
5. (Luke 23:43). Paradise is real and, by the phrase ‘to day’, Jesus was referring to the resurrection day when He was raised from the dead, not referring to His body. Resurrection first occurred in Jesus’ spirit and soul before His body, which is His house.
6. Right in hell, Jesus' spirit and soul sat on the throne before He entered back into His body. When Jesus ascended to heaven, the Father did not have to make Him better (Heb. 1:4). He triumphed over death and destroyed Satan through death at resurrection. The glory of the Father raised Him up.
7. Jesus' bosom is paradise. Jesus heaved paradise and gave it to Abraham's bosom. This is needed because Abraham's bosom could not ascend to heaven. Jesus closed the paradise of Abraham, and raised a better one called paradise.
8. The Son of man who is in heaven is actually God's Son (John 3:13). Man was made to be in heaven. There are open heavens over us and we must desire to enter heaven. Our high priest is higher than all other heavens (Heb. 7:26).
9. If we are not careful, we also can fall from our heavenly estate because of things that lure us. The sons of Adam fell and left the heaven of the earth because of the daughters of men. The word ‘woman’ means paradise. A woman is heaven to a man.
10. Heaven is holy, harmless, undefiled and is separate from sinners. Any heaven that is unholy, harms, can defile and has sin is leaven; it is a bad heaven. There is a heaven that Jesus is. It is the Heaven that the Father is and that is the heaven He wants to give to many.