"God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace" (Eph 2:6,7).
IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS: A present situation -- having access with God (cp Eph 2:4,5,7,18). Our heavenly calling (Heb 3:1), by a heavenly Father (Mat 18:35), through a heavenly word (Joh 3:12), presents to us a heavenly status (Eph 2:6), as we await a heavenly image (1Co 15:48,49), to be a heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22), in a heavenly country (Heb 11:16), within a heavenly kingdom (2Ti 4:18). All this constitutes Christ's brethren as a heavenly people of God!
the Heavenlies in Christ are not luoghi, heux, or places, but STATES
There are 2 types of Heavenlies when he speaks of the heavenlies in which "the spirituals of wickedness" are found he omits the phrase "in Christ Hence, the two kinds of supernal states are characterized by being "in Christ" or not in Christ; which is equivalent to being out of Christ - outside,
Paul tells the saints in Ephesus, that he with them were "blessed with all spiritual blessings" in these heavenlies; in which they and Christ, though the latter is at the Right Hand of the Divine Majesty, and they in Ephesus and elsewhere, were regarded as sitting together (Eph. 1:20; 2:6). A heavenly is a constituted supernal state. It may be Divinely constituted, or constituted by human authority. We have these two kinds of heaven-ies in Paul's letter to the saints in Ephesus. In ch. 6:12, he alludes to the heavenlies constituted by human authority.
The heavenlies in Christ are 3 states answering to the 3 places of the tabernacle of Moses, the outer court, holy place and the most holy place these 3 places in the tabernacle correspond to the 3 spiritual realm of Olam/Aeon
These apocalyptic temple states answer to the Altar-Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy within the Vail of the Mosaic Building. The apocalyptic Altar-Court and the Holy Place are what Paul styles in Eph. i. 3, "the Heavenlies in Christ." They are constituted of "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," who are partakers with the Altar, and worshippers therein (1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 18; Heb. xiii. 10; Apoc. xi. 1).
yet the saints, not sinners, who are quickened with him, and raised with him, sit together in both with him, and He with them. Now the solution of this mystery turns wholly upon the meaning of the phrase "in him."
in Deity the Father, and the Lord Jesus Anointed. The saints are all in this manifestation of Deity. Being in Jesus and the Father, they must be, in a certain sense, where Jesus and the Father are. Alluding to this fact, Paul says in Heb. 12:23, "22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.",
But Paul says that Jesus is at the Father's own Right Hand. True; but he also says, that "being justified by faith, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." In other words, we have admission to the Father in heaven by faith; and when a person is permitted access to a place, and avails himself of the permission, he is in some sense certainly there; and when there in this certain sense, he is "dwelling in the heaven" in the presence of "the Judge of all."
entrance into the tabernacle gate is by faith For it is the domain of faith,
How, then, does a sinner come to "dwell in the heaven?" By being "transformed in the renewing of his mind" "by knowledge" (Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10); that he may discern and do "that good and acceptable and Perfect will of the Deity." In other words, by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and being immersed into and upon that Name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in "the truth as it is in Jesus," and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore, "in Him;" and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself (Gal. 3:26-29); and a "dweller in the heaven.
An Ecclesia of Christ is, apocalyptically speaking, "the Altar and them that worship therein." They who constitute it have all been "cleansed in the Laver of the Water with doctrine;" and in passing through the water have passed into the Christ-Altar, and become one with it. When they die, they lie under the Altar, or "sleep in Jesus;" when they are slain for the word of the Deity and for their testimony, they are blood-souls under the Altar, crying for vengeance. But while they are living in the present state of tribulation and patience waiting for Christ, they are Altar-worshippers "having access by faith into" the heavenlies where Christ sits at the right hand of Power (Eph. i. 20; Rom. v.
It is synonymous with "the Name," and "them dwelling in the heaven;" for all the constituents of the tabernacle are constituents of the Name, having been all immersed into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and they "dwell in the heaven," in the sense that "the Deity hath made them to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus" (Eph. ii. 6).
But Christ and the Saints are not only the Name and Tabernacle of the Deity, but they are also, "those who dwell in the heaven."
Paul wrote, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is aeonian (2 Cor 4: 18). The word aeonian describes those things human eyes have not seen, and ears have not heard, because they belong to the unseen realm of the kingdom of God.
They will receive you into aeonian dwellings (Luke 16: 9 And I to you say: Make you to yourselves friends out of the mammon of the unjust; that, when you may fail, they may receive you into the age-lasting tabernacles.). We have a building from God, an aeonian house in heaven, not built by human hands (2 Cor 5: 1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.). I am going to prepare a place for you, so that you also may be where I am (John 14: 3).
The natural mind thinks about living in a physical house made of brick or stone. Solomon even built a physical house of stone where God could live. Jesus did not go to prepare a mansion in the sky for his followers to enjoy after they died. Rather he prepared an invisible, spiritual place for them and us to inhabit immediately here and now.
This was and is life on a totally new and higher plane. Physical life is visible and temporary and destructible. Spiritual life is unseen and permanent and indestructible. All this is implied in the word aeonian.
Whoever believes in the Son has aeonian life (John 3: 36) In this and many other verses, we find not the future tense, but the present. Not will have aeonian life, but has aeonian life. Aeonian life is not an infinitely prolonged extension of this life after we die. It is a new, spiritual life which we receive from Jesus when we receive him.
"The Man Christ Jesus" is a real man. When on earth he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless," as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect - a perfect man "justified by spirit," and therefore incorruptible and immortal - a perfect character or moral nature, developed by Divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled "the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all." Isaac was Sarah's son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This "One Body" of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ. They are the children of the promise as Isaac was; the free-born sons of Sarah the free woman. This is their state, without regard to the place or country of earth or heaven, where they might be supposed to be. But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically "a number which no man could number." He himself taught this, saying, "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:" and, "Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (eis eme) through the apostles' word: that they all may be one in us" (John 10:5; 17:20,21). Though few compared with the whole race of man, it is a great company absolutely - a people taken out from all the generations and the nations for the Divine Name. "He shall increase," said John the Immerser; "but I must decrease." Jesus increased, or grew, into a Divine and "chosen generation;" while John has dwindled down into a mere Baptist Denomination, which is either ignorant of, or opposed to "the truth as it is in Jesus."
Now the two places of the Mosaic tabernacle were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which were divided the one from the other by the Vail. Even so it is with "the holies", the true tabernacle which the Lord pitches, and not man (Heb. 8:2). There are the Holy Heavenly State and the Most Holy Heavenly State, divided by the Flesh. The Holy must be entered before the Most Holy can be reached; and to pass corporeally from one into the other, the individual must put on incorruptibility and become immortal; for, so long as he is in mortal flesh he is outside, or rather, an element of the Vail which must be rent; though by faith and constitution in Christ, he is within it.
How, then, does a sinner come to "dwell in the heaven?" By being "transformed in the renewing of his mind" "by knowledge" (Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10); that he may discern and do "that good and acceptable and Perfect will of the Deity." In other words, by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and being immersed into and upon that Name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in "the truth as it is in Jesus," and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore, "in Him;" and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself (Gal. 3:26-29); and a "dweller in the heaven."
But there are heavenlies beyond the pale of the Christ-Body. These are Supernal States in which Paul locates principalities, powers, world-rulers of the darkness of the times of the Gentiles, which he styles "this aeon," and the spirituals of the wickedness enthroned throughout the earth. These heavenlies are constituted providentially or instrumentally by human authority and power after "the course of this world;" and are the tabernacle of "the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). This Prince-power and Spirit of the Air is Sin's Flesh; whose spirit pervades all sublunary human constitutions, styled "thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers,'' which Paul specifies as ''things in the heaven" or "the Air'' (Col. 1:16). In such an unclean heaven as this, are found the Ten-Horned, and Two-Horned, Beasts, the Name of Blasphemy, the Lion-Mouth, and the Image of the Beast, or False Prophet, the God of the Earth - all things of power, in short, emanating from falsehood and superstition. The dwellers in this Air, or Heaven, are not the Saints. In their days of Apocalyptic prophecy the two witnessing prophets had power to shut this heaven that there should be no rain from it; and as often as they willed during 1260 years, to turn the popular waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all war-plagues (ch. 11:6). The dwellers in this Aerial are the civil and ecclesiastical orders of society; such as, emperors, kings, diplomatists, nobles spiritual and racial, legislators, magistrates, priests, clergymen, parsons, and all of that class, styled by the apostle "spirituals of the wickedness" which reigns in "the Court of the Gentiles without the temple." Between this heaven and "the Heavenlies in Christ" there is implacable and uncompromising hostility. No peace can be permanently established in the earth till one or other of these heavens be suppressed or subjugated: and who can doubt which of these heavens shall be shaken, be rolled up as a scroll, and be made to pass away with the great tumult of war? The heavenlies, or high places, of this world are decreed to Yahweh and his Anointed Body; who, by the thunders and lightnings issuing from the throne newly set in the heaven, shall take the dominion under the whole heaven, and possess it during the Olahm and beyond (ch. 11:15; 4:1-5; Dan. 7:18,22,27). This is the fiat of Eternal Wisdom and Power. The Seventh Vial, the last blast of the Seventh Trumpet, is to pour out its fury upon the Air, the secular and spiritual constitution of which will thereby be thoroughly and radically changed. The things now in the Air will be transferred to "them who dwell in the heaven" in Christ; who, having passed through the Vail of the Flesh which divides the Heavenlies, in the putting on of immortality, will be manifested as the Most Holy Heavenly in Christ; and the Air, filled with their glory, will become the New Heavens, in which righteousness will dwell forever. The Air will then no longer be malarious with the pestiferousness of secular and spiritual demagogues, who "with good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." The Prince of the Power of the Air will then be the Spirit that works in the children of obedience - the truth incarnated gloriously in Jesus and his Brethren; who, in the highest sense, will be those who dwell in the heaven.
These apocalyptic temple states answer to the Altar-Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy within the Vail of the Mosaic Building. The apocalyptic Altar-Court and the Holy Place are what Paul styles in Eph. i. 3, "the Heavenlies in Christ." They are constituted of "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," who are partakers with the Altar, and worshippers therein (1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 18; Heb. xiii. 10; Apoc. xi. 1). An Ecclesia of Christ is, apocalyptically speaking, "the Altar and them that worship therein." They who constitute it have all been "cleansed in the Laver of the Water with doctrine;" and in passing through the water have passed into the Christ-Altar, and become one with it. When they die, they lie under the Altar, or "sleep in Jesus;" when they are slain for the word of the Deity and for their testimony, they are blood-souls under the Altar, crying for vengeance. But while they are living in the present state of tribulation and patience waiting for Christ, they are Altar-worshippers "having access by faith into" the heavenlies where Christ sits at the right hand of Power (Eph. i. 20; Rom. v. 2).
I
But the Heavenlies in Christ are not luoghi, heux, or places, but STATES, the foundation of which is laid in Jesus Christ - Deity manifested in the Flesh. "The Man Christ Jesus" is a real man. When on earth he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless," as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect - a perfect man "justified by spirit," and therefore incorruptible and immortal - a perfect character or moral nature, developed by Divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled "the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all." Isaac was Sarah's son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This "One Body" of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ. They are the children of the promise as Isaac was; the free-born sons of Sarah the free woman. This is their state, without regard to the place or country of earth or heaven, where they might be supposed to be. But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically "a number which no man could number." He himself taught this, saying, "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:" and, "Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (eis eme) through the apostles' word: that they all may be one in us" (John 10:5; 17:20,21). Though few compared with the whole race of man, it is a great company absolutely - a people taken out from all the generations and the nations for the Divine Name. "He shall increase," said John the Immerser; "but I must decrease." Jesus increased, or grew, into a Divine and "chosen generation;" while John has dwindled down into a mere Baptist Denomination, which is either ignorant of, or opposed to "the truth as it is in Jesus."
The heavenlies in Christ are two states answering to the two places of the tabernacle of Moses. One of these states is not yet manifested on earth; the other is. Hence, one may be said to be visible, and the other invisible; yet the saints, not sinners, who are quickened with him, and raised with him, sit together in both with him, and He with them. Now the solution of this mystery turns wholly upon the meaning of the phrase "in him." What is it then, to be in him? It is to be where Paul places the saints in Thessalonica, namely, en Theo patri, kai Kuno Iesou Christo, in Deity the Father, and the Lord Jesus Anointed. The saints are all in this manifestation of Deity. Being in Jesus and the Father, they must be, in a certain sense, where Jesus and the Father are. Alluding to this fact, Paul says in Heb. 12:23, "We are come to the Deity the Judge of all, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant", and so forth. But Paul says that Jesus is at the Father's own Right Hand. True; but he also says, that "being justified by faith, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." In other words, we have admission to the Father in heaven by faith; and when a person is permitted access to a place, and avails himself of the permission, he is in some sense certainly there; and when there in this certain sense, he is "dwelling in the heaven" in the presence of "the Judge of all."
Now the two places of the Mosaic tabernacle were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which were divided the one from the other by the Vail. Even so it is with "the holies", the true tabernacle which the Lord pitches, and not man (Heb. 8:2). There are the Holy Heavenly State and the Most Holy Heavenly State, divided by the Flesh. The Holy must be entered before the Most Holy can be reached; and to pass corporeally from one into the other, the individual must put on incorruptibility and become immortal; for, so long as he is in mortal flesh he is outside, or rather, an element of the Vail which must be rent; though by faith and constitution in Christ, he is within it.
How, then, does a sinner come to "dwell in the heaven?" By being "transformed in the renewing of his mind" "by knowledge" (Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10); that he may discern and do "that good and acceptable and Perfect will of the Deity." In other words, by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and being immersed into and upon that Name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in "the truth as it is in Jesus," and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore, "in Him;" and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself (Gal. 3:26-29); and a "dweller in the heaven."
But there are heavenlies beyond the pale of the Christ-Body. These are Supernal States in which Paul locates principalities, powers, world-rulers of the darkness of the times of the Gentiles, which he styles "this aeon," and the spirituals of the wickedness enthroned throughout the earth. These heavenlies are constituted providentially or instrumentally by human authority and power after "the course of this world;" and are the tabernacle of "the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). This Prince-power and Spirit of the Air is Sin's Flesh; whose spirit pervades all sublunary human constitutions, styled "thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers,'' which Paul specifies as ''things in the heaven" or "the Air'' (Col. 1:16). In such an unclean heaven as this, are found the Ten-Horned, and Two-Horned, Beasts, the Name of Blasphemy, the Lion-Mouth, and the Image of the Beast, or False Prophet, the God of the Earth - all things of power, in short, emanating from falsehood and superstition. The dwellers in this Air, or Heaven, are not the Saints. In their days of Apocalyptic prophecy the two witnessing prophets had power to shut this heaven that there should be no rain from it; and as often as they willed during 1260 years, to turn the popular waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all war-plagues (ch. 11:6). The dwellers in this Aerial are the civil and ecclesiastical orders of society; such as, emperors, kings, diplomatists, nobles spiritual and racial, legislators, magistrates, priests, clergymen, parsons, and all of that class, styled by the apostle "spirituals of the wickedness" which reigns in "the Court of the Gentiles without the temple." Between this heaven and "the Heavenlies in Christ" there is implacable and uncompromising hostility. No peace can be permanently established in the earth till one or other of these heavens be suppressed or subjugated: and who can doubt which of these heavens shall be shaken, be rolled up as a scroll, and be made to pass away with the great tumult of war? The heavenlies, or high places, of this world are decreed to Yahweh and his Anointed Body; who, by the thunders and lightnings issuing from the throne newly set in the heaven, shall take the dominion under the whole heaven, and possess it during the Olahm and beyond (ch. 11:15; 4:1-5; Dan. 7:18,22,27). This is the fiat of Eternal Wisdom and Power. The Seventh Vial, the last blast of the Seventh Trumpet, is to pour out its fury upon the Air, the secular and spiritual constitution of which will thereby be thoroughly and radically changed. The things now in the Air will be transferred to "them who dwell in the heaven" in Christ; who, having passed through the Vail of the Flesh which divides the Heavenlies, in the putting on of immortality, will be manifested as the Most Holy Heavenly in Christ; and the Air, filled with their glory, will become the New Heavens, in which righteousness will dwell forever. The Air will then no longer be malarious with the pestiferousness of secular and spiritual demagogues, who "with good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." The Prince of the Power of the Air will then be the Spirit that works in the children of obedience - the truth incarnated gloriously in Jesus and his Brethren; who, in the highest sense, will be those who dwell in the heaven.
It was against the Saints, who, in the times of the Gentiles, constitute the Name, the Tabernacle, and them who dwelt in the Heaven in Christ, that the Ten-Horned Beast opens his Leo-Babylonian Mouth in blasphemy; and makes war, till the end of the Forty and Two Months of Years. In blaspheming Jesus and his Brethren, he blasphemes the Deity, on the principle laid down by Christ, that what is done to, for, or against, his brethren, is done to, for, or against him. The Lion-Mouth of the Apocalyptic Babylon spoke evil of them in words of the most acrid bitterness. He denounced them as heretics, accursed, the children of the Devil, the spawn of hell - not a blasphemous epithet was there that the pope and his agents did not heap upon them. The prophetic writings, though set aside for the purposes of truth and edification, were resorted to for names of infamy by which to make them odious to those who worship the beast and his image; and the evil symbols and appellations therein employed by the Spirit to prefigure the Apostasy and its "spirituals of the wickedness," this Mouth of Blasphemy applied to the Saints. In this it blasphemed the Deity himself. This principle is well illustrated in Ezek. 35, where a statement made by Edom concerning Israel and their country is styled blasphemy against the mountains of Israel, because it was false. Edom said, as he also says to this day, "these two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it, though Yahweh were there." Now, He had promised the land to Jacob, and to him he will give it for an everlasting inheritance. Hence, every saying subversive of this purpose is blasphemy against the country, and blasphemy and boasting against the Eternal Spirit: for, if Edom's purpose of possession could possibly be established, the Deity's veracity would be destroyed, and his character for faithfulness overthrown. "Thus," in making false statements concerning the destiny of Israel, Judah, and their country, O Edom, saith Yahweh, "with your mouth ye have boasted against Me, and have multiplied your words against Me; I have heard: so that when the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate." By Edom is here represented what John symbolizes by the Beast and his Image, etc. Hence, to blaspheme or speak evil and injuriously of God's people, and promises, is regarded by Him as blasphemy against Himself.
The Nave, or Most Holy Place, of the Mosaic Tabernacle, which was "the figure of the true," "which the Lord pitches, and not man" (Heb. 9:24; 8:2), was the enclosure containing the Ark of the Testimony, the Cherubim, and the smoking and flaming Glory of the Deity. In the true Holies which the Lord pitches, similar arrangements obtain. The tabernacle Moses erected was built of wood, curtains, gold, and so forth; but the building the Lord erects is raised up of living and enlightened beings, created in his own image, and after his own intellectual and moral likeness (1 Cor. 3:9,16; Eph .2:20,22; Heb. 3:2). These are the heavenlies in Christ" (Eph. 1:3)). The first is the heavenly, or the holy body, consisting of "the faithful in Christ Jesus," in the times preceding the advent of the Ancient of Days. The second is the most holy heavenly body, constituted of all who shall be accounted worthy to pass through the Vail, into incorruptibility and deathlessness; by being clothed upon with the "fine linen pure and bright;" and girded around the breast with the "golden girdle". Thus, we have the ONE BOD in two states - as it is before the Ancient of Days comes; and as it will be after that appearing.
IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS: A present situation -- having access with God (cp Eph 2:4,5,7,18). Our heavenly calling (Heb 3:1), by a heavenly Father (Mat 18:35), through a heavenly word (Joh 3:12), presents to us a heavenly status (Eph 2:6), as we await a heavenly image (1Co 15:48,49), to be a heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22), in a heavenly country (Heb 11:16), within a heavenly kingdom (2Ti 4:18). All this constitutes Christ's brethren as a heavenly people of God!
the Heavenlies in Christ are not luoghi, heux, or places, but STATES
There are 2 types of Heavenlies when he speaks of the heavenlies in which "the spirituals of wickedness" are found he omits the phrase "in Christ Hence, the two kinds of supernal states are characterized by being "in Christ" or not in Christ; which is equivalent to being out of Christ - outside,
Paul tells the saints in Ephesus, that he with them were "blessed with all spiritual blessings" in these heavenlies; in which they and Christ, though the latter is at the Right Hand of the Divine Majesty, and they in Ephesus and elsewhere, were regarded as sitting together (Eph. 1:20; 2:6). A heavenly is a constituted supernal state. It may be Divinely constituted, or constituted by human authority. We have these two kinds of heaven-ies in Paul's letter to the saints in Ephesus. In ch. 6:12, he alludes to the heavenlies constituted by human authority.
The heavenlies in Christ are 3 states answering to the 3 places of the tabernacle of Moses, the outer court, holy place and the most holy place these 3 places in the tabernacle correspond to the 3 spiritual realm of Olam/Aeon
These apocalyptic temple states answer to the Altar-Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy within the Vail of the Mosaic Building. The apocalyptic Altar-Court and the Holy Place are what Paul styles in Eph. i. 3, "the Heavenlies in Christ." They are constituted of "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," who are partakers with the Altar, and worshippers therein (1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 18; Heb. xiii. 10; Apoc. xi. 1).
yet the saints, not sinners, who are quickened with him, and raised with him, sit together in both with him, and He with them. Now the solution of this mystery turns wholly upon the meaning of the phrase "in him."
in Deity the Father, and the Lord Jesus Anointed. The saints are all in this manifestation of Deity. Being in Jesus and the Father, they must be, in a certain sense, where Jesus and the Father are. Alluding to this fact, Paul says in Heb. 12:23, "22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.",
But Paul says that Jesus is at the Father's own Right Hand. True; but he also says, that "being justified by faith, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." In other words, we have admission to the Father in heaven by faith; and when a person is permitted access to a place, and avails himself of the permission, he is in some sense certainly there; and when there in this certain sense, he is "dwelling in the heaven" in the presence of "the Judge of all."
entrance into the tabernacle gate is by faith For it is the domain of faith,
How, then, does a sinner come to "dwell in the heaven?" By being "transformed in the renewing of his mind" "by knowledge" (Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10); that he may discern and do "that good and acceptable and Perfect will of the Deity." In other words, by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and being immersed into and upon that Name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in "the truth as it is in Jesus," and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore, "in Him;" and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself (Gal. 3:26-29); and a "dweller in the heaven.
An Ecclesia of Christ is, apocalyptically speaking, "the Altar and them that worship therein." They who constitute it have all been "cleansed in the Laver of the Water with doctrine;" and in passing through the water have passed into the Christ-Altar, and become one with it. When they die, they lie under the Altar, or "sleep in Jesus;" when they are slain for the word of the Deity and for their testimony, they are blood-souls under the Altar, crying for vengeance. But while they are living in the present state of tribulation and patience waiting for Christ, they are Altar-worshippers "having access by faith into" the heavenlies where Christ sits at the right hand of Power (Eph. i. 20; Rom. v.
It is synonymous with "the Name," and "them dwelling in the heaven;" for all the constituents of the tabernacle are constituents of the Name, having been all immersed into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and they "dwell in the heaven," in the sense that "the Deity hath made them to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus" (Eph. ii. 6).
But Christ and the Saints are not only the Name and Tabernacle of the Deity, but they are also, "those who dwell in the heaven."
Paul wrote, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is aeonian (2 Cor 4: 18). The word aeonian describes those things human eyes have not seen, and ears have not heard, because they belong to the unseen realm of the kingdom of God.
They will receive you into aeonian dwellings (Luke 16: 9 And I to you say: Make you to yourselves friends out of the mammon of the unjust; that, when you may fail, they may receive you into the age-lasting tabernacles.). We have a building from God, an aeonian house in heaven, not built by human hands (2 Cor 5: 1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.). I am going to prepare a place for you, so that you also may be where I am (John 14: 3).
The natural mind thinks about living in a physical house made of brick or stone. Solomon even built a physical house of stone where God could live. Jesus did not go to prepare a mansion in the sky for his followers to enjoy after they died. Rather he prepared an invisible, spiritual place for them and us to inhabit immediately here and now.
This was and is life on a totally new and higher plane. Physical life is visible and temporary and destructible. Spiritual life is unseen and permanent and indestructible. All this is implied in the word aeonian.
Whoever believes in the Son has aeonian life (John 3: 36) In this and many other verses, we find not the future tense, but the present. Not will have aeonian life, but has aeonian life. Aeonian life is not an infinitely prolonged extension of this life after we die. It is a new, spiritual life which we receive from Jesus when we receive him.
"The Man Christ Jesus" is a real man. When on earth he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless," as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect - a perfect man "justified by spirit," and therefore incorruptible and immortal - a perfect character or moral nature, developed by Divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled "the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all." Isaac was Sarah's son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This "One Body" of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ. They are the children of the promise as Isaac was; the free-born sons of Sarah the free woman. This is their state, without regard to the place or country of earth or heaven, where they might be supposed to be. But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically "a number which no man could number." He himself taught this, saying, "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:" and, "Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (eis eme) through the apostles' word: that they all may be one in us" (John 10:5; 17:20,21). Though few compared with the whole race of man, it is a great company absolutely - a people taken out from all the generations and the nations for the Divine Name. "He shall increase," said John the Immerser; "but I must decrease." Jesus increased, or grew, into a Divine and "chosen generation;" while John has dwindled down into a mere Baptist Denomination, which is either ignorant of, or opposed to "the truth as it is in Jesus."
Now the two places of the Mosaic tabernacle were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which were divided the one from the other by the Vail. Even so it is with "the holies", the true tabernacle which the Lord pitches, and not man (Heb. 8:2). There are the Holy Heavenly State and the Most Holy Heavenly State, divided by the Flesh. The Holy must be entered before the Most Holy can be reached; and to pass corporeally from one into the other, the individual must put on incorruptibility and become immortal; for, so long as he is in mortal flesh he is outside, or rather, an element of the Vail which must be rent; though by faith and constitution in Christ, he is within it.
How, then, does a sinner come to "dwell in the heaven?" By being "transformed in the renewing of his mind" "by knowledge" (Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10); that he may discern and do "that good and acceptable and Perfect will of the Deity." In other words, by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and being immersed into and upon that Name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in "the truth as it is in Jesus," and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore, "in Him;" and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself (Gal. 3:26-29); and a "dweller in the heaven."
But there are heavenlies beyond the pale of the Christ-Body. These are Supernal States in which Paul locates principalities, powers, world-rulers of the darkness of the times of the Gentiles, which he styles "this aeon," and the spirituals of the wickedness enthroned throughout the earth. These heavenlies are constituted providentially or instrumentally by human authority and power after "the course of this world;" and are the tabernacle of "the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). This Prince-power and Spirit of the Air is Sin's Flesh; whose spirit pervades all sublunary human constitutions, styled "thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers,'' which Paul specifies as ''things in the heaven" or "the Air'' (Col. 1:16). In such an unclean heaven as this, are found the Ten-Horned, and Two-Horned, Beasts, the Name of Blasphemy, the Lion-Mouth, and the Image of the Beast, or False Prophet, the God of the Earth - all things of power, in short, emanating from falsehood and superstition. The dwellers in this Air, or Heaven, are not the Saints. In their days of Apocalyptic prophecy the two witnessing prophets had power to shut this heaven that there should be no rain from it; and as often as they willed during 1260 years, to turn the popular waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all war-plagues (ch. 11:6). The dwellers in this Aerial are the civil and ecclesiastical orders of society; such as, emperors, kings, diplomatists, nobles spiritual and racial, legislators, magistrates, priests, clergymen, parsons, and all of that class, styled by the apostle "spirituals of the wickedness" which reigns in "the Court of the Gentiles without the temple." Between this heaven and "the Heavenlies in Christ" there is implacable and uncompromising hostility. No peace can be permanently established in the earth till one or other of these heavens be suppressed or subjugated: and who can doubt which of these heavens shall be shaken, be rolled up as a scroll, and be made to pass away with the great tumult of war? The heavenlies, or high places, of this world are decreed to Yahweh and his Anointed Body; who, by the thunders and lightnings issuing from the throne newly set in the heaven, shall take the dominion under the whole heaven, and possess it during the Olahm and beyond (ch. 11:15; 4:1-5; Dan. 7:18,22,27). This is the fiat of Eternal Wisdom and Power. The Seventh Vial, the last blast of the Seventh Trumpet, is to pour out its fury upon the Air, the secular and spiritual constitution of which will thereby be thoroughly and radically changed. The things now in the Air will be transferred to "them who dwell in the heaven" in Christ; who, having passed through the Vail of the Flesh which divides the Heavenlies, in the putting on of immortality, will be manifested as the Most Holy Heavenly in Christ; and the Air, filled with their glory, will become the New Heavens, in which righteousness will dwell forever. The Air will then no longer be malarious with the pestiferousness of secular and spiritual demagogues, who "with good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." The Prince of the Power of the Air will then be the Spirit that works in the children of obedience - the truth incarnated gloriously in Jesus and his Brethren; who, in the highest sense, will be those who dwell in the heaven.
These apocalyptic temple states answer to the Altar-Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy within the Vail of the Mosaic Building. The apocalyptic Altar-Court and the Holy Place are what Paul styles in Eph. i. 3, "the Heavenlies in Christ." They are constituted of "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," who are partakers with the Altar, and worshippers therein (1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 18; Heb. xiii. 10; Apoc. xi. 1). An Ecclesia of Christ is, apocalyptically speaking, "the Altar and them that worship therein." They who constitute it have all been "cleansed in the Laver of the Water with doctrine;" and in passing through the water have passed into the Christ-Altar, and become one with it. When they die, they lie under the Altar, or "sleep in Jesus;" when they are slain for the word of the Deity and for their testimony, they are blood-souls under the Altar, crying for vengeance. But while they are living in the present state of tribulation and patience waiting for Christ, they are Altar-worshippers "having access by faith into" the heavenlies where Christ sits at the right hand of Power (Eph. i. 20; Rom. v. 2).
).
I
But the Heavenlies in Christ are not luoghi, heux, or places, but STATES, the foundation of which is laid in Jesus Christ - Deity manifested in the Flesh. "The Man Christ Jesus" is a real man. When on earth he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless," as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect - a perfect man "justified by spirit," and therefore incorruptible and immortal - a perfect character or moral nature, developed by Divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled "the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all." Isaac was Sarah's son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This "One Body" of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ. They are the children of the promise as Isaac was; the free-born sons of Sarah the free woman. This is their state, without regard to the place or country of earth or heaven, where they might be supposed to be. But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically "a number which no man could number." He himself taught this, saying, "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:" and, "Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (eis eme) through the apostles' word: that they all may be one in us" (John 10:5; 17:20,21). Though few compared with the whole race of man, it is a great company absolutely - a people taken out from all the generations and the nations for the Divine Name. "He shall increase," said John the Immerser; "but I must decrease." Jesus increased, or grew, into a Divine and "chosen generation;" while John has dwindled down into a mere Baptist Denomination, which is either ignorant of, or opposed to "the truth as it is in Jesus."
The heavenlies in Christ are two states answering to the two places of the tabernacle of Moses. One of these states is not yet manifested on earth; the other is. Hence, one may be said to be visible, and the other invisible; yet the saints, not sinners, who are quickened with him, and raised with him, sit together in both with him, and He with them. Now the solution of this mystery turns wholly upon the meaning of the phrase "in him." What is it then, to be in him? It is to be where Paul places the saints in Thessalonica, namely, en Theo patri, kai Kuno Iesou Christo, in Deity the Father, and the Lord Jesus Anointed. The saints are all in this manifestation of Deity. Being in Jesus and the Father, they must be, in a certain sense, where Jesus and the Father are. Alluding to this fact, Paul says in Heb. 12:23, "We are come to the Deity the Judge of all, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant", and so forth. But Paul says that Jesus is at the Father's own Right Hand. True; but he also says, that "being justified by faith, we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." In other words, we have admission to the Father in heaven by faith; and when a person is permitted access to a place, and avails himself of the permission, he is in some sense certainly there; and when there in this certain sense, he is "dwelling in the heaven" in the presence of "the Judge of all."
Now the two places of the Mosaic tabernacle were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which were divided the one from the other by the Vail. Even so it is with "the holies", the true tabernacle which the Lord pitches, and not man (Heb. 8:2). There are the Holy Heavenly State and the Most Holy Heavenly State, divided by the Flesh. The Holy must be entered before the Most Holy can be reached; and to pass corporeally from one into the other, the individual must put on incorruptibility and become immortal; for, so long as he is in mortal flesh he is outside, or rather, an element of the Vail which must be rent; though by faith and constitution in Christ, he is within it.
How, then, does a sinner come to "dwell in the heaven?" By being "transformed in the renewing of his mind" "by knowledge" (Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10); that he may discern and do "that good and acceptable and Perfect will of the Deity." In other words, by believing the gospel of the Kingdom and Name; and being immersed into and upon that Name. In so doing, he enters into the Holy Heavenly State. By faith in "the truth as it is in Jesus," and obedience, he puts on Christ, and is therefore, "in Him;" and being in him, he is constitutionally holy or a saint; and sitting together with him in the Most Holy, not personally, or corporeally rather; but by faith. This is his present adoption through Jesus Christ, by which he becomes a son of Deity, of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, and a brother of Christ himself (Gal. 3:26-29); and a "dweller in the heaven."
But there are heavenlies beyond the pale of the Christ-Body. These are Supernal States in which Paul locates principalities, powers, world-rulers of the darkness of the times of the Gentiles, which he styles "this aeon," and the spirituals of the wickedness enthroned throughout the earth. These heavenlies are constituted providentially or instrumentally by human authority and power after "the course of this world;" and are the tabernacle of "the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2). This Prince-power and Spirit of the Air is Sin's Flesh; whose spirit pervades all sublunary human constitutions, styled "thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers,'' which Paul specifies as ''things in the heaven" or "the Air'' (Col. 1:16). In such an unclean heaven as this, are found the Ten-Horned, and Two-Horned, Beasts, the Name of Blasphemy, the Lion-Mouth, and the Image of the Beast, or False Prophet, the God of the Earth - all things of power, in short, emanating from falsehood and superstition. The dwellers in this Air, or Heaven, are not the Saints. In their days of Apocalyptic prophecy the two witnessing prophets had power to shut this heaven that there should be no rain from it; and as often as they willed during 1260 years, to turn the popular waters into blood, and to smite the earth with all war-plagues (ch. 11:6). The dwellers in this Aerial are the civil and ecclesiastical orders of society; such as, emperors, kings, diplomatists, nobles spiritual and racial, legislators, magistrates, priests, clergymen, parsons, and all of that class, styled by the apostle "spirituals of the wickedness" which reigns in "the Court of the Gentiles without the temple." Between this heaven and "the Heavenlies in Christ" there is implacable and uncompromising hostility. No peace can be permanently established in the earth till one or other of these heavens be suppressed or subjugated: and who can doubt which of these heavens shall be shaken, be rolled up as a scroll, and be made to pass away with the great tumult of war? The heavenlies, or high places, of this world are decreed to Yahweh and his Anointed Body; who, by the thunders and lightnings issuing from the throne newly set in the heaven, shall take the dominion under the whole heaven, and possess it during the Olahm and beyond (ch. 11:15; 4:1-5; Dan. 7:18,22,27). This is the fiat of Eternal Wisdom and Power. The Seventh Vial, the last blast of the Seventh Trumpet, is to pour out its fury upon the Air, the secular and spiritual constitution of which will thereby be thoroughly and radically changed. The things now in the Air will be transferred to "them who dwell in the heaven" in Christ; who, having passed through the Vail of the Flesh which divides the Heavenlies, in the putting on of immortality, will be manifested as the Most Holy Heavenly in Christ; and the Air, filled with their glory, will become the New Heavens, in which righteousness will dwell forever. The Air will then no longer be malarious with the pestiferousness of secular and spiritual demagogues, who "with good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." The Prince of the Power of the Air will then be the Spirit that works in the children of obedience - the truth incarnated gloriously in Jesus and his Brethren; who, in the highest sense, will be those who dwell in the heaven.
It was against the Saints, who, in the times of the Gentiles, constitute the Name, the Tabernacle, and them who dwelt in the Heaven in Christ, that the Ten-Horned Beast opens his Leo-Babylonian Mouth in blasphemy; and makes war, till the end of the Forty and Two Months of Years. In blaspheming Jesus and his Brethren, he blasphemes the Deity, on the principle laid down by Christ, that what is done to, for, or against, his brethren, is done to, for, or against him. The Lion-Mouth of the Apocalyptic Babylon spoke evil of them in words of the most acrid bitterness. He denounced them as heretics, accursed, the children of the Devil, the spawn of hell - not a blasphemous epithet was there that the pope and his agents did not heap upon them. The prophetic writings, though set aside for the purposes of truth and edification, were resorted to for names of infamy by which to make them odious to those who worship the beast and his image; and the evil symbols and appellations therein employed by the Spirit to prefigure the Apostasy and its "spirituals of the wickedness," this Mouth of Blasphemy applied to the Saints. In this it blasphemed the Deity himself. This principle is well illustrated in Ezek. 35, where a statement made by Edom concerning Israel and their country is styled blasphemy against the mountains of Israel, because it was false. Edom said, as he also says to this day, "these two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it, though Yahweh were there." Now, He had promised the land to Jacob, and to him he will give it for an everlasting inheritance. Hence, every saying subversive of this purpose is blasphemy against the country, and blasphemy and boasting against the Eternal Spirit: for, if Edom's purpose of possession could possibly be established, the Deity's veracity would be destroyed, and his character for faithfulness overthrown. "Thus," in making false statements concerning the destiny of Israel, Judah, and their country, O Edom, saith Yahweh, "with your mouth ye have boasted against Me, and have multiplied your words against Me; I have heard: so that when the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate." By Edom is here represented what John symbolizes by the Beast and his Image, etc. Hence, to blaspheme or speak evil and injuriously of God's people, and promises, is regarded by Him as blasphemy against Himself.
The Nave, or Most Holy Place, of the Mosaic Tabernacle, which was "the figure of the true," "which the Lord pitches, and not man" (Heb. 9:24; 8:2), was the enclosure containing the Ark of the Testimony, the Cherubim, and the smoking and flaming Glory of the Deity. In the true Holies which the Lord pitches, similar arrangements obtain. The tabernacle Moses erected was built of wood, curtains, gold, and so forth; but the building the Lord erects is raised up of living and enlightened beings, created in his own image, and after his own intellectual and moral likeness (1 Cor. 3:9,16; Eph .2:20,22; Heb. 3:2). These are the heavenlies in Christ" (Eph. 1:3)). The first is the heavenly, or the holy body, consisting of "the faithful in Christ Jesus," in the times preceding the advent of the Ancient of Days. The second is the most holy heavenly body, constituted of all who shall be accounted worthy to pass through the Vail, into incorruptibility and deathlessness; by being clothed upon with the "fine linen pure and bright;" and girded around the breast with the "golden girdle". Thus, we have the ONE BOD in two states - as it is before the Ancient of Days comes; and as it will be after that appearing.
Paul wrote, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is aeonian (2 Cor 4: 18). The word aeonian describes those things human eyes have not seen, and ears have not heard, because they belong to the unseen realm of the kingdom of God.
They will receive you into aeonian dwellings (Luke 16: 9 And I to you say: Make you to yourselves friends out of the mammon of the unjust; that, when you may fail, they may receive you into the age-lasting tabernacles.). We have a building from God, an aeonian house in heaven, not built by human hands (2 Cor 5: 1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.). I am going to prepare a place for you, so that you also may be where I am (John 14: 3).
The natural mind thinks about living in a physical house made of brick or stone. Solomon even built a physical house of stone where God could live. Jesus did not go to prepare a mansion in the sky for his followers to enjoy after they died. Rather he prepared an invisible, spiritual place for them and us to inhabit immediately here and now.
This was and is life on a totally new and higher plane. Physical life is visible and temporary and destructible. Spiritual life is unseen and permanent and indestructible. All this is implied in the word aeonian.
Whoever believes in the Son has auonian life (John 3: 36) In this and many other verses, we find not the future tense, but the present. Not will have aeonian life, but has aeonian life. Aeonian life is not an infinitely prolonged extension of this life after we die. It is a new, spiritual life which we receive from Jesus when we receive him.
The dwellings, tabernacles, and mansions are built upon a foundation. The foundation of which is laid in Jesus Christ - Deity manifested in the Flesh. "The Man Christ Jesus" is a real man. When on earth he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless," as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect - a perfect man "justified by spirit," and therefore incorruptible and immortal - a perfect character or moral nature, developed by Divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled "the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all." Isaac was Sarah's son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This "One Body" of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ.
But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically "a number which no man could number." He himself taught this, saying, "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:" and, "Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (eis eme) through the apostles' word: that they all may be one in us" (John 10:5; 17:20,21).
They will receive you into aeonian dwellings (Luke 16: 9 And I to you say: Make you to yourselves friends out of the mammon of the unjust; that, when you may fail, they may receive you into the age-lasting tabernacles.). We have a building from God, an aeonian house in heaven, not built by human hands (2 Cor 5: 1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.). I am going to prepare a place for you, so that you also may be where I am (John 14: 3).
The natural mind thinks about living in a physical house made of brick or stone. Solomon even built a physical house of stone where God could live. Jesus did not go to prepare a mansion in the sky for his followers to enjoy after they died. Rather he prepared an invisible, spiritual place for them and us to inhabit immediately here and now.
This was and is life on a totally new and higher plane. Physical life is visible and temporary and destructible. Spiritual life is unseen and permanent and indestructible. All this is implied in the word aeonian.
Whoever believes in the Son has auonian life (John 3: 36) In this and many other verses, we find not the future tense, but the present. Not will have aeonian life, but has aeonian life. Aeonian life is not an infinitely prolonged extension of this life after we die. It is a new, spiritual life which we receive from Jesus when we receive him.
The dwellings, tabernacles, and mansions are built upon a foundation. The foundation of which is laid in Jesus Christ - Deity manifested in the Flesh. "The Man Christ Jesus" is a real man. When on earth he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and sinless," as to character; yet imperfect as to his material nature. He is now perfect - a perfect man "justified by spirit," and therefore incorruptible and immortal - a perfect character or moral nature, developed by Divine power, or spirit, into a perfect material nature. But Christ is also an allegorical man, as Hagar and Sarah were two allegorical women; the former representing the Mosaic Covenant; the latter, the New, or Abrahamic, Covenant. From the days of Moses until the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 34, the whole twelve tribes were constitutionally in their mother Hagar, or the Jerusalem system then in existence, and in bondage with her children. But on that celebrated day a new system was initiatorily developed, the Sarah Covenant, styled "the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all." Isaac was Sarah's son, and allegorically slain, and allegorically raised. The saints are all in Isaac; for "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." This seed is Christ; not Jesus only; but that great multitude also which no man can number. This "One Body" of people headed up in Deity is the allegorical or figurative Christ.
But, if there had been no literal or personal Christ, there could have been no such Christ-State for Jews and Gentiles. Jesus of Nazareth was allegorically "a number which no man could number." He himself taught this, saying, "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:" and, "Father, I pray for them who shall believe into me (eis eme) through the apostles' word: that they all may be one in us" (John 10:5; 17:20,21).
No comments:
Post a Comment