Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Date: Friday, 10th December 2021
“But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel…” (2 Tim. 1:8-10) God has predestined that every man would experience His life and immortality. God had it in mind to abolish death. Our knowledge of life and death is by revelation. This means our definition of life and death is according to our growth experience and understanding.
Jesus has designed to bring everlasting life and immortality to man through the gospel so that man can sight it, desire it and have it. Your level of sight determines your pursuit. The gospel of Jesus Christ focuses primarily on abolishing death. The oath of Christ in the program of the garden was concealed; it was an agenda before the world began.
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” (1 John 3:1). One who has not found entrance into the agenda of God has not found the love of God. We have enjoyed various manners of God’s love but we have not seen an expression of this peculiar manner of love of God.
“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). God has moved us into another realm of love entirely – a love meant for those who have believed. Anyone who must come to Him must see and believe (Heb. 11:6). We have once believed in the realm of Christ but we are to believe again. The reason for all the bread is for us to believe again.
There is a hope we saw but there is a hope we are yet to see. Something that is seen is no more in the realm of hope (Rom. 8:24). There is a hope we have not seen which we need to see. A man who is blinded from this hope of everlasting life has suffered from a great blindness. At a point, Christ was hope to us but when we attained Him, He was no longer hope. Therefore, there is a higher hope we must move to attain.
Paul was setting order in the Corinthian Church and addressing their issues, so that they can come into the understanding of a more excellent way (1 Cor. 12:31). There is an excellent way and an excellent glory that we need to access. The excellent way is the reason Jesus is being made manifest.
The early Church faced many warfares and one of these warfares that came to hinder them was the teaching that resurrection is past already (2 Tim. 2:18). These set of people would rather continue with Christ and not journey further because they think resurrection is past. This doctrine was not just referring to the resurrection of the flesh in the last days. Resurrection is a doctrine but these people were not ready to accept it as the gospel.
“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; [4] And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures…” (1 Cor. 15:3-4) It is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ that the heavenly dominion really showed up. The understanding Jesus Christ came to bring to light is life and immortality. Resurrection will remain a mystery until there is an understanding of everlasting life and immortality.
It is the understanding of life and immortality that will abolish death in a soul. The Father spent years teaching Jesus how to raise the dead (John 6:40). The Father’s work is to give life to the dead; it is to raise the dead (John 5:21). To quicken the dead is to move the dead into the sphere of the living, for God is not the God of the dead but the God of the living (Matt. 22:32).
“But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. [18] Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5:17-18). The Jews were angry about Jesus’ claim of God being His Father, but not what the Father works. We also fall victim of this sometimes, as we claim God as our Father but dissociate ourselves from His work. The essence of the Father is regeneration. The true test of parenthood lies in the ability to raise children. The real job of the Father is to raise children of the Kingdom. The work of the Father is not about generating children that will share an identity with Him, but generating children that will identify with His works.
Although Jesus was a Son, some things were still kept from Him (John 5:19). This is because He still needed to be raised to access those things. If Jesus had died immediately after Jordan, the work would not have been done. The Being that was hung on the cross was not just a person but He was the real work of God. Jesus had the capacity to raise the temple (the body) because He had learned how the Father raises the body (John 2:19). Hence, we can now understand how He had the strength to go through His trials. Jesus did not die carelessly; He clearly saw the glory ahead of Him and understood it.
Without a proper understanding of what His death on the cross entailed, Jesus would not have had the power to go through it. What we see and know of presently is a veil against what we do not yet know of or what we ought to see. The knowledge a man has gives him the leverage by which he survives on the face of the earth. However, that knowledge might be a limitation to many other things he has not seen.
Hearing the words of Jesus is to dovetail into the work the Father is doing which is how the Father raises (John 5:19-24). Thus, what raises a man is his ability to see the work. To raise a man is to change/transform his nature. What causes a change in nature is light. Light has the power to uproot darkness. Death is light; it is wisdom. This is why it has a root (legal standing) on which it operates.
If Jesus had fallen for Satan's temptation (Luke 4:1-13, Heb. 4:15), His eyes would have been plucked out and He would have been unable to see and follow the Father to the end. The devil knows the potency of the eyes of a man; he knows that the entire strength of a man lies in his eyes. Jesus’ response to Satan’s temptations was not just a quote from the Bible but from the archive of the works God had wrought in Him. Jesus knew He was a product of the works of the Father. He knew that what would crumble His building was His loss of sight of what the Father was doing inside Him.
It is mercy to find this ministry of the New Testament and that is the only reason we would not faint. A New Testament man may faint, but when he finds this mercy, he finds a strength that cannot fail but rather, would last. The agenda of hell is to ensure that we do not make progress in our journey to Eternal Life. Satan does not stop at hindering a soul from getting born again. Even after a man is born again, Satan strives to keep him carnal; and then if he overcomes that, Satan fights to ensure his laws are active in the soul of that believer. However, there is a strength that can outdo his schemes.
There is a realm of youthful strength (Is. 40:31), which is the realm in Christ. A time will come when the youthful strength will give way for the everlasting strength. To have sight of the knowledge of everlasting life that God is delivering to us is very important because without it, we will faint in the warfare that is coming. Thus, the essence of the everlasting life is to ensure that we are beaten to a sphere where our strength is renewed, having moved from life unto life continuously until renewal becomes our nature.
The natural man is different from the carnal man (1 Cor. 15:47). The natural man is a representation of the 'earthy' life. The kingdom of God is heavenly; the heavenly is the dominion of God. What makes the earthy and heavenly are their image (1 Cor. 15:48-49). Thus, heaven is not about a place, but about the expression of an image.
The dominion of the Father should come (Matt. 6:10). We must sight it when it comes so we can pursue after it and thereafter inherit it. The reason for the breaking of bread is so that our eyes can be open to see the dominion of the Father. We can see this dominion when it comes because its works are already operating within us.
“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” (1 Cor. 15:50). Flesh and blood refers to corruption whereas the kingdom of God is incorruption. Thus, the first sight into God’s kingdom is sight into incorruption. Therefore, a man cannot claim to sight the kingdom of God when he is yet to sight incorruption. Incorruption is the first expression of God’s dominion. To sight it is to receive an understanding of how it works.
“But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” (Heb. 10:39). A soul is saved when it has received the kingdom that cannot be moved (Heb. 12:28). However, the enemy tries to introduce other kingdoms that are not safe so as to blind our eyes from seeing the kingdom of God. The test of such kingdoms is to check if they are incorruptible or not. On the outside, they may seem glamorous and strong but on the inside, corruption exists.
Paul had to explain to the Corinthian Church that resurrection was not just about coming out of the grave but that it is about the inheriting of a nature (1 Cor. 15:51). It would take the revelation of this mystery of resurrection for us to partake in this nature and life. The teaching of resurrection is another sphere of the gospel which is the doctrine/teaching of how death will be swallowed up in victory. This is the main doctrine of the Father which God prepared for man before the world was formed. It is mercy that we are not receiving it in the form of prophecy, but we are receiving it in the form of doctrine and commandments.
We must come to this point where the pursuit of our lives is the putting on of incorruption (1 Cor. 15:53). Our duty is to make sure we see all that the Father has shown to the Son. May we all come to this point where we can say that we are under the Father’s work like Jesus did (John 5:17).