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Part
7 OUR
FATHER (continued)
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven...” (Mat. 6:9).
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like
Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (I Jn. 3:2). That is the truth, the
final, absolute, and ultimate truth about you and me. It is a dogma, and
an intolerant dogma, as all dogmas are. It does not permit any compromise.
If I am the son of God revealed in Jesus Christ, then I am not just a
little better than the beast, nor just a little lower than the angels —
I am better and higher than the angels and have obtained a more excellent
name (nature) than they, raised up in Christ to sit together with Him in
the higher than all heavens, to sit with Him upon His throne even as He is
set down with His Father in His throne, crowned with glory and honor.
Every kind of thought or action based upon the belief that I am anything
less than this — a spirit being in the image and likeness of God — any
idea that my life is limited like the life of the animals, or controlled
as theirs is controlled — is a tissue of falsehood and all action based
upon that falsehood can only issue in disaster. If I am the son of God
then I am born of the Spirit, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
If I am the son of God, nothing but God will satisfy my longing; no
amount of comfort, no amount of pleasure, no amount of wealth, will give
me peace or rest. If I had the cup full of all the world’s joys held up
to me, and could drain it to the dregs, I should still remain thirsty if I
had not God. If the feast of all the good things of life, pleasures and
powers, fame and prestige, that have been and are, could be laid out
before me and I could eat it all at one meal, I should still be hungry if
I had not God. There is not enough in a hundred billion galaxies to
satisfy a fully developed spirit — I must find my life in the Father. I
must know the Father. I must fellowship and commune with the Father. I
must dwell where He dwells. There are not in reality two worlds or two
lives, there is but one — and that is life eternal, which is to know
Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent (Jn. 17:3). TWO LEVELS OF SONSHIP
Although God is “the Father of the spirits of all flesh
(Num. 27:16; Heb. 12:9), ” it is evident that not all sons are created
equal. Let me give you an example. The first son that Abraham had was
Ishmael. Ishmael was conceived when Sarah had despaired that she would
never bear the son of promise. She persuaded Abraham to take unto him her
Egyptian maidservant, Hagar. Ishmael is a type of the son of the flesh,
rather than promise. Abraham loved Ishmael! He was indeed his son, and
undoubtedly a beautiful and winsome child. But — while Ishmael was the
son of Abraham, he was also the son of the Egyptian bondwoman. The analog
is just this — your first birth is that of Ishmael. It’s the love of
the Father, it’s the Father’s son, His very offspring — but it’s
born out of the Father in an Egyptian (earthly, worldly, sensual) mind.
Abraham could not tell that when he looked at his son — he looked at
Ishmael and all he saw was his son. His bowels cried out, “This is my
son — O Lord, please bless Ishmael!” But the Lord responded, “No —
in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” “Who in the world is Isaac, Lord?
I’m one hundred years old — what do you mean, Isaac? Sarah is ninety
years old — how are you going to give me a baby?” But the record
states: “He believed.” And in that wonderful day when Isaac was born
the Bible says that Ishmael mocked the son of promise. And then Abraham
could see the real nature of things. Two sons — two natures — but both
from one father. One of the low realm of the flesh, and one from above by
the power of God. Can we not see by this how it is that God is the Father
of the spirits of all flesh.
We might ask, Who really is entitled to think of, or to pray to God
as Father? In one sense, every living soul, if we take into consideration
such a passage as Malachi 2:10, “Have we not all one Father? Hath not
God created us?” Jesus said to His disciples, “I ascend to My Father,
and to your Father; to My God, and your God” (Jn.
God is the Father of all men. There is a special sense in
which God is the Father of those only who are reborn of Him through the
Holy Spirit of re-generation. To these He gives, in a blessedly distinct
sense, the “spirit of adoption” or the revelation of their sonship,
whereby they cry, “Abba, Father!” Nevertheless the fact remains,
universal and unalterable, that God is the Father of the spirits of all
men. Father Adam is declared by the spirit of inspiration to be “the son
of God” (Lk.
Now consider how this truth of God’s Fatherhood will affect
some views of ours. God is the Father of the spirits of all flesh. He is
the Father of all virtuous and lovely souls, and He is equally the Father
of the sinful and the vicious. He was the Father of the exemplary,
dutiful, faithful, industrious son who stayed at home and worked. He was
not less the Father of the prodigal who wandered into a far country, spent
his substance in riotous living, and began to be in want. “If you are
not good God will not love you,” a parent sometimes says to a child. But
He will! He cannot help it. You do not cease to love your little one
because of his mistakes and shortcomings. You smile and are sorry
together! But the love is there. God may have to punish — but that need
not be unloving. His strokes may be mercy, His chastisement grace. He
cannot possibly treat all alike, the responsible and the irresponsible,
the faithful and the rebellious. He may have to leave the unfaithful
alone, to taste the fruit of his doing, and see what results from his sin.
He may leave him to pass through sorrow, the grave, and hell. In a word,
God may have to deal with a sinning child of His as the noblest and purest
earthly parent might with his prodigal son or daughter who would not come
home. Yet God is still the Father, and God is love.
Charles Aked wrote: “This fact of Fatherhood is indestructible.
On that we must insist. In the nature of the case it is indestructible. A
father cannot become an un-father. You cannot travel back in time and
prevent the birth of your children. Fatherhood is not a contract. It is
one of the inevitabilities of life. If I am already, here and now, your
son, how can you make it otherwise? I may be unworthy of you. You may
desire to disown me. You may even disinherit me, but the fact of your
fatherhood is one of the facts of the universe. And to many of us it is
inconceivable that God should ever want to destroy such a fact, or
abdicate His Fatherhood. Suppose your son is so unworthy, and you so
righteously grieved and pained and angry with him. Suppose he came to
himself, with tears and shame and through a cleansing baptism of
repentance sought his way back to your heart. Suppose you, with divine
insight, saw that his repentance was sincere and that he longed with a
great longing for your moral and spiritual help and uplift in his
toilsome, agonizing struggle backward to the forgotten good and forward to
the light of day. It is only barely conceivable that you would turn a deaf
ear to his petitions and prayers. And when it is a question of God’s
love and of His eternal Fatherhood, it is forever and forever impossible
to conceive of a time or a circumstance, when, if the prodigal wishes to
return to his Father, the Father will refuse to receive him. We may trust
death and if need be hell itself to demonstrate the Father’s love.”
Now in a very real sense — and I ask that you follow me
closely — all mankind are the sons of God. I must emphasize that.
Scripture is very accurate and careful to make this assertion. Paul, when
speaking to the pagan Athenians on Mars hill said, “God that made the
world and all things therein...hath made of one blood all nations of men
for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times
before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should
seek the Lord, if haply they might seek after Him, and find Him, though He
be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have
our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, FOR WE ARE ALSO
HIS OFFSPRING” (Acts 17:24-28). And the word he used — offspring —
is GENOS in the Greek which carries the meaning of that which is generated
or begotten. When Adam sinned mankind fell from that intimate and sweet
relationship with God, dying the spiritual death, unresponsive to the
reality of the spirit, and knows not of his sonship, but walks estranged
and without God and without hope in the world.
So, there are two levels of sonship — those whose spirits
have been quickened by HIS Spirit, begotten again unto a living hope; and
those who walk estranged from the Father’s house, lost even from the
knowledge or remembrance of their true identity, for they have not yet
“come to themselves.” They are the Father’s sons even while they
wallow with the pigs in the stench and filth of the pig pen of sin, eating
the swill of the flesh. MAN — THE IMAGE OF GOD
You may remember the story of Helen of troy. According to legend
this beautiful queen was captured and carried away and became a victim of
amnesia. She became a prostitute in the streets. She didn’t know her
name or the fact that she came from royal blood. But back in her homeland,
friends didn’t give up. One Greek man believed she was alive and went to
look for her. He never lost faith. One day while wandering through the
streets, he came to a waterfront and saw a wretched woman in tattered
clothes with deep lines across her face. There was something about her
that seemed familiar, so he walked up to her and said, “What is your
name?” She gave a name that was meaningless to him. “May I see your
hands?” he pursued. She held her hands out in front of her, and the
young man gasped, “You are Helen! You are Helen! Do you remember?” She
looked up at him in astonishment. “Helen!” he yelled out. Then the fog
seemed to clear. There was recognition in her face. The light came on! She
discovered her lost self! She put her arms around her old friend and wept.
She discarded her tattered clothes and once more became the queen she was
meant to be. God searches for all men in the same way. He uses every
method possible to look for men and women to convince them of their worth
to Him — their true value.
The almost universal urge to pray is due to the fact that
originally man was created in the image of God, begotten of the Father in
heaven. It is true that as a result of man’s fall into sin and death the
divine image in his character has been much blurred, and in many instances
almost erased, yet remnants of it still remain, and one of its
manifestations is the urge to pray — to fellowship and commune with God
in the realm of the spirit. Even atheists pray, sometimes!
The story is told of a painter who saw a child so perfect in
his beauty that he painted him, and said that if ever he found a face as
vile as that face was angelic, he would paint that as a contrast to it.
Years passed, and he had not seen a face so absolute in its degradation as
that child’s in its loveliness. But one day he visited a prison, and
there saw a felon, still young, but with face almost devilish in its
vicious demoralization. He painted this wretched prisoner, and while
painting him found, to his appalling astonishment, that this man was that
lovely child, as drink, and lust, and greed, and hate had made him; and
the two pictures, it is said, hang side by side in some Italian gallery.
But the awful tale they tell is a tale of every day, and in all these
cases the holy image of God is not seen, but is distorted by the fraud and
malice of the devil and the carnal mind.
What was fully manifested and seen in Jesus is potential in every
man. Something of that same divine spirit that was expressed in Him in all
fullness is also in us. Something of the same divine likeness in which we
were created is hidden in all men. Concealed and corroded by sin the
resemblance is not evident save to the penetrating search of love, but
there is something of God-life in every man. Our spirit must indeed be
quickened by His Spirit before it can be made evident and recognized. To
be “dead” does not mean to be non-existent, but to be unresponsive to
the realm of spiritual life. The body in the casket is not non-existent,
but it is certainly unresponsive to this world. This is what Paul meant
when he wrote: “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses
and sins. Wherein in time past ye walked (dead men walked!) according to
the course of this world...among whom we all had our conversation in times
past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of
the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But
God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; and
hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus...for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”
(Eph. 2:1-6,10). This is the second birth BY WHICH THE DIVINE PART OF MAN
MAY COME TO LIFE.
It has been said that in Jesus Christ the divine and the human
meet, but this is also true of every one of us. He is the true humanity
who is the Son of God. It is not that He is super-human, but that we are
sub-human. But inasmuch as we are human at all we are akin to Him. The
first man and the second man are both men. The first Adam and the last
Adam are both Adam. Those in the first Adam are in part what the last Adam
is in perfection. The whole purpose of our lives is to become human in the
sense in which He was human; to be changed into the same likeness from one
glorious conversion to another, even by the Lord who is the Spirit —
PERFECT MANHOOD. Christ is to grow up in us, and the whole process of life
is one in which “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Paul said so
well: “It pleased God to reveal HIS SON in me,” which precisely
describes the life of sonship, for the Son of God is the PERFECT MAN IN
GOD’S IMAGE. It is as the Spirit of Christ becomes manifest within us
that we approach nearer and nearer to the true humanity as it was seen in
Jesus, “till we all come to a perfect manhood, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph.
As one brother has so ably said: “God is equipping a people by
revealing the power of words — the Word. Thus saith the scriptures:
‘The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart’ (
“There isn’t anything that isn’t done by words. The method of
educating all children is with numbers and letters. With numbers and
letters, configured in various forms, you raise the educational and
functional level of a human being from nothing at the time of birth, to
become a surgeon, a politician, an architect, a scientist, or
accomplishment in a vast number of fields. We have surgeons that perform
brain surgery. They are people just like you and me. The only difference
is the words of letters and numbers that are ingrained within their
thinking. The combination of that learning, the disciplines of those
sciences of mathematics, medicine, politics, etc., have given to them a
different personality and capability. They have a personality and
consciousness that enables them to open up your head and operate on it.
Let me ask you something — would you let me open up your head and
operate on it? Of course not — and I wouldn’t ask you to! And you know
why — you know that the knowledge contained in those words and letters
is not in me! The words and letters used in medical school have not
trained me to be a doctor. But the greatest doctor started out as a baby
with no knowledge, no ability, no accomplishment, no skill. He started out
with nothing in his head — just like you and me. The only difference is
that someone took the time to instruct him and put the knowledge of
medical science into that person who by the assimilation of that knowledge
and experience became that reality. And it was all done by words. Jesus
said that the
Someone has pointed out that we are more attracted to a personality
than to an idea. In very fact, most people respond more heartily to a weak
idea presented by a great personality, than to a great idea presented by a
weak personality. The Bible says that “In the beginning was the Word”
(Jn. 1:1). Every word originates in the realm of thought. All words are
merely ideas expressed verbally. You cannot divorce the spoken word from
the idea it articulates — they are the same. I may pray, for example, in
audible words or I may pray silently, sending only my unspoken request to
the Lord by the spirit of my mind, as did Hannah of old as she prayed for
a son and was heard. “Now Hannah, she spake in her heart: only her lips
moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been
drunken. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel
grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him” (I Sam.
Now, the best way to promote an idea is to wrap it up in a
personality. That is what God did in Jesus Christ. He wrapped up all His
nature, character, glory, grace, wisdom, knowledge, love and power in a
man and stood Him up in the earth. This man was God’s Idea — the Word!
And Jesus Christ is the ideal of all mankind, the second Man, the last
Adam, the example and pattern and proto-type of God’s will and purpose
for all men. What Jesus is, is what God meant when He said in that long
ago beginning, “Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness”
(Gen. 1:26). That is GOD’S IDEA! That is GOD’S WORD! That is the glory
and majesty of man AS HE WAS INTENDED TO BE!
George Hawtin once wrote: “Did you ever stand in awe and marvel
at the work of the great artists on earth? Perhaps expressions failed and
words became inadequate as you stood before Michelangelo’s statue of
David or gazed with wonder at the faces of the presidents carved in the
heights of
Christianity today has no need greater than the need to know the
power and glory of the CHRIST WITHIN. CHRIST is the image of God, the
scripture says. I know these words may seem to be incredible, but they are
truth — the very first mention of the “image of God” is applied, not
to Jesus Christ, but to our forefather ADAM. “And God said, Let us make
MAN IN OUR IMAGE, after our likeness: and let them have dominion...so God
created MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE, in the IMAGE OF GOD created He him” (Gen.
1:26-27). As we consider the wonderful advent of man created “in the
image of God” we can only conclude that this is a spiritual man brought
forth out of the very spirit-substance of God Almighty, and bearing His
own divine nature, character, power and attributes. The image of God is
the nature of God reproduced in man. Thus, man is the true image of God.
The divine nature was best and fully expressed in the man Christ Jesus who
shed upon mortals the truest reflection of God and lifted man’s sights
higher than their poor thought-models would allow. Jesus revealed to men
their true origin, heritage and destiny. He came to show man what man
really is, was intended to be, and through redemption shall be — THE
IMAGE OF GOD. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the
end, the first and the last. In Jesus Christ you see man as he was in the
beginning and as he ever shall be world without end — THE IMAGE OF GOD.
Of Him it is written, “He is the expression of the glory of God — the
Light-being, the out-raying of the divine — and He is the perfect
imprint and very image of God’s nature...” (Heb. 1:3, Amplified).
Christ, and humanity in Christ, is like a ray of light that comes from the
sun — man, the extension of God, emanates God.
Consider the scene! After having created man a spiritual man, in
the image and likeness of God, God then formed a man of the dust of the
ground. God then came to man in the earth realm. He breathed into the man,
so magnificently formed, the spiritual realm, the winds of heaven, the
breath of divinity. He released into Adam something of the heavenly, and
out from His breath came a brilliant, sparkling, effervescence like a
living star that entered into the clay. That wind, that spirit, that
breath, that substance of God animated the clay model, creating within a
dimensionless quality, condition, and state of being. That “breath of
lives” as the Hebrew states it was the glory of the spiritual man
breathed or infused into the clay model. Only the Light that God Himself
is more beautiful than this creature. And the magnificent wonder is that
this man can see right into the heavenly, spiritual realm. The animals
can’t see into that realm, the birds can’t see into that realm, the
fish can’t see into that realm — no creature on earth can see beyond
this gross material realm except the man in God’s image.
Please mark this! Here is a physical, visible creature who can see
the unseen. He is not frightened by it. He is not intimidated by anything
or any creature he beholds in that glorious realm. In all the brilliance,
purity, glory, and power of that high and holy realm that he beholds, he
is at home with who he is and who they are. He looks around and all things
are open to him. He sees all, perceives all, understands all. The face of
God bent down and looked into the face of man, and man looked up into the
face of God and they looked like each other. They looked like Father and
son. They looked like twin brothers. They looked like clones. They bore an
incredible, remarkable resemblance. God stretched forth His hand, Adam
stretched forth His hand, and Adam stood up from the dust and faced his
Creator. He belonged to this planet, but the winds of heaven were within
him. He belonged to the heavens as well as the earth. Man is the only
creature that ever has been, is now, or ever shall be that belongs to both
realms!
Contrary to popular teaching man has never LOST the image of God,
although the image has been obscured, marred, and corrupted by the
usurpation of the carnal mind, the outer man. A lost image is NO image.
The true likeness cannot be lost in divine Being. It would be like fire
without light. The out-raying image of God is the Word of God. To destroy
the Word of God you would need to destroy God Himself, for God and His
Word are ONE. To destroy the image of God would necessitate the
destruction of God, for God and His image are ONE. The apostle Paul
confirms that man, even in his fallen and mortal state, is still the image
of God in his remarkably significant words to the saints in Corinth:
“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he IS THE
IMAGE AND GLORY OF GOD” (I Cor. 11:7).
What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones — the material structure?
If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the
man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys manhood, and worms
annihilate it. But the loss of some physical member has sometimes become
the quickener of manhood as in the crucible of suffering there appear the
virtues of humility, thankfulness, patience, compassion, drawn from the
rich resources of INNER SPIRITUAL STRENGTH. The unfortunate cripple may
present more nobility of true manhood than the dashing athlete —
teaching us that the man on the inside is of far more enduring substance
than the man on the outside! Take away the physical and take away the
outer worldly elements of wealth, possessions, fame, social recognition,
which weigh not one jot on the scales of God, and in what remains we get a
clearer picture of man as God made him. Let goodness, mercy, justice,
purity, health, holiness and love — the
Adam’s sin in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil lay in his walking after the flesh (sense realm) instead of the
Spirit. It consisted in his making the outer, physical, material, sensual
man his center, identity and existence rather than the inner man of
spirit. The remarkable thing is that he perceived not that all that
pertains to the material world is illusionary, transitory, corruptible.
Sensual treasures are laid up “where moth and rust doth corrupt.”
Mortality is their doom. Death breaks in upon them, and carries off their
fleeting joys. The sensualist’s affections are as imaginary, whimsical,
unreal and short-lived as his pleasures. Covetousness, fleshly passions,
gluttony, drunkenness, immorality, fame, fashion, vanity, worldly wisdom,
political power, military might, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, hate, and so
forth, pass away with the works thereof. Stripped of its coverings, what a
mocking spectacle the flesh is! When the almighty Creator counseled the
first man and his wife, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die,” He gave precisely the same instruction in wisdom
and prudence that the apostle Paul offered long millenniums afterwards
when by inspiration he wrote, “For they that are after the flesh do mind
the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things of
the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die:
but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
live” (
George Hawtin has eloquently expounded on this thought, and I share
a few of his valuable insights. “Well did the apostle Paul know that the
vast majority of humanity was ‘at home’ only in the REALM OF THE BODY.
They belonged entirely to an earthly realm where things are visible,
audible, and touchable. Their minds seldom mounted higher than things
physical, and when for a few moments they did rise to walk upon a
spiritual plane, they were not really ‘at home’ there, but waited for
the moment when they could LAPSE BACK to the NATURAL AND NORMAL, for that
is where they were ‘at home.’ So, while men are ‘at home’ in the
body, they are always ‘absent from the Lord’ (II Cor. 5:6-7), absent
from the spiritual world of true reality. HEAVEN IS CLOSED TO THEM. Their
minds dwell in the realm where men buy and sell, plant and build, marry
and are given in marriage. They dwell in a realm of eating and drinking,
of finding pleasure for the body, amusing their minds with silly things of
the world, absorbing, listening to, or looking at some fictitious thing
that serves only to amuse the natural man, keeping his heart away from the
realm of eternal reality.”
My heart burns within me and my spirit is flooded with joy
unspeakable and full of glory as these sacred and wonderful truths find
lodging and substance within my consciousness. With what clarity I see
that when Adam stood between the tree of life and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, his future condition was to be shaped by the
tree-identity (consciousness) he pursued. “For they that are after the
flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit
the things of the spirit” (
Again I would share significant and enlightening words from the
able pen of George Hawtin. In his excellent paper, THE PASSING AND THE
PERMANENT, he explains, “Now, since the flesh lusts against the spirit
and is at endless conflict with it, then anything that seeks to make you
earthly and fleshly-minded is a great evil. The things that belong to the
realm of the flesh are passing away. Even the flesh itself is passing
away. Anything that is passing away is not real. It is like a bubble that
floats prettily in the air only to burst never to exist again. It is like
the darkness that disappears with the dawn and has no certain dwelling
place. It is like a flower in the field that blooms for a moment and
disappears, a vision of the night, a fleeting shadow, a moment of joy, a
passing sorrow, or a sudden pain. When such things have passed by, no one
knows where they came from or whither they have gone. Those, however, who
indulge themselves in the things that belong to the body grow to think
that nothing is true or real but what is bodily and can be touched or seen
or eaten or drunk or enjoyed by the passions of men. Unwittingly they
change true riches for false; things that are unseen by mortal eyes for
things that are seen. They exchange things that are spirit for things that
can be touched, tasted, and felt by the body. The soul now begins to think
that these things which belong to the body are real and therefore becomes
fleshly minded. The carnal or earthly mind is an enemy of God and an enemy
of all things spiritual. It is small wonder then that the natural man
cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God; for all things connected
with the natural belong to time and change, while all things belonging to
the spiritual are eternal and changeless. So then all who would know the
WISDOM OF GOD and the REVELATION OF THE LORD, must turn their spirits from
the realm of the physical and changing, the corrupt and mortal, and fly
away into the realm of the pure, eternal, unchanging and immortal.”
When the Lord lowered man into this gross material realm man
possessed, by the spirit, the divine potential to overcome the flesh,
sanctify it, transform it, infusing it with the qualities of life —
holiness and incorruption. Jesus, the last Adam, the Ideal Man, came and
demonstrated for us this very principle. This potential in man to rule the
natural by the spirit is shed forth in Jesus’ mighty works — by His
healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, casting out devils, forgiving
sins, doing miracles, and raising the dead — He transcended by His life,
words, and actions all the so-called laws of the material, mortal realm.
The great significance of Jesus’ mighty works will never ring clear in
our spirits until we understand that He did not perform as a unique,
different kind of man — all His wonderful works were the teaching of
what is NORMAL FOR MAN IN HIS TRUE
By His resurrection Jesus proved the Spirit within to be
OMNIPOTENT, all-conquering, all-sufficient. He met and mastered death
itself by the law of the Spirit of Life. He took no drugs to fight
infection or inflammation. He did not depend upon health food or pure air
or vitamins or herbs to renew depleted energies. He did not require the
skill of a surgeon to heal the torn palms and bind up the wounded side and
the nail pierced feet, that He might use those hands to remove the napkin
and the grave clothes, and that He might walk as before. Jesus vanquished
every material obstacle, overcame every law of matter, and stepped forth
from His gloomy grave, crowned with the glory of a sublime success, and
everlasting victory — the second man, the last Adam — the role-model
for each and every man and woman of Adam’s race! Jesus’ victory over
sin, sickness, pain, limitation, death and the grave was for the
enlightenment of all men and the salvation of the whole world. Paul
writes, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved BY HIS
Before closing this message I am moved to share some anointed,
inspiring, and penetrating words from Bro. Carl Schwing. “Many of you
have wondered who and what I am. I am not a teacher or a prophet. I do not
bear a great title, nor do I seek the praise of men. I am, so to speak, a
sower...I have gone out to sow the seeds of the Kingdom. I seek no reward
except His good pleasure. I am one of you, I seek a better country whose
Builder and Ruler is God. I am like you...I yearn for the Spirit to rule
over the outward man. I am part of you...for I too bear the suffering of
Jesus in my body. And with you I look up...for total redemption draws
near. I sat with you in another time and another place...and we all
shouted for joy! We share together our birthright in Christ Jesus and
share the longing for our manifestation: the hour of truth and freedom for
the creation. Hallelujah! Truly we are blood relations...born of His
Spirit before there was time, place, or things. But most important is what
He is in us. He is more beautiful than beauty. He is richer and fuller
than life. He is the One who hath made us one in Him. We follow the
Lamb...we hear His voice...He is the fullness of the Word within our inner
son. And we shall plunge ourselves into His depths until He alone remains.
Truly, we are of a higher order; all that is inflicted upon us is a
blessing and a cause to rejoice in His perfecting will.
“We are not dreamers, we share a vision. We are seeing beyond the
limitations of the past, beyond the consummation of the age...perhaps
beyond the Millennium. It is a vision we shared long ago within our
Father’s house. A vision of the finished plan: man in the image and
likeness of God. A vision of the place by Him where condemnation and
punishment is met by mercy...ah, His mercy endures forever. A place where
His light overpowers all darkness. A place where reconciliation replies to
the cry of vengeance. And when ‘It is done’ is heard, a beginning
rises like ten thousand suns...for all things, good and evil, light and
darkness, truth and error, life and death, hell and the grave, have all
served in His perfect plan to establish forever His glorious Kingdom upon
the earth, within the hearts of all mankind and upon all creation; unto
the filling of the universe and all therein. This vision leads to
attainment...and attainment is the accomplishment of predestination.
Hallelujah! Do you realize, my faithful ones, just what it means to be one
with the Father? or to be filled with His fullness? or to sit with Him
upon His throne? Do you realize the depths of this truth?...we are to
share all things in common with Him. Do you recall when He said to us,
‘All that I have is thine?’ Awesome, is it not? Born of the seed of
God’s Christ...heirs with Christ of the Father’s glory. Is it any
wonder that we could not find life in the religions of men! Is it any
wonder that He called us unto Himself! We are receiving the inheritance we
have in Christ Jesus and the Father is receiving the inheritance He has in
us. Oh! the wonder of it all...
“Have you ever wondered why you could not find fulfillment in the
form, or in the letter, or in the ministries of men? I would imagine that
we have all wondered that at one time or another. It is simply because of
this: it was never meant for us to find fulfillment in anything, or
anyone, except the Father. The six days of man’s feeble rule is coming
to an end, as the reign of God’s eternal Christ rises in transforming
glory within our inner son. The way of life is breaking forth in the
wilderness of man’s dead ideologies, theologies and philosophies. Time
could only give us ‘present truth’...now beyond time, ministries, and
dispensations, comes the ageless truth of our union with God. Though we
have walked with the understanding of a child, we are now coming to the
full knowledge of the Son of God, which will enable us to walk as mature
sons, entering our appointed place in the fullness of Christ.
“Do you think it awesome to call God Father? Are you beginning to
see that as sons we have been freed of all the gods and idols of the world
and of religion? Who do we have in heaven besides Him? Who is there on
earth that we could desire more than Him? There is not one! Whenever we
cry Father, the Christ-son within us leaps for joy! As sons, we see the
creation as a visible expression of the Father. It is not true that the
Father made all things from nothing, rather, all things were made
out-from-Himself...everything bearing a likeness, to some degree, of His
infinitely perfect nature. In this hour it has pleased the Father to
reveal a son in us. The full scope of this is beyond my finite
understanding. A Christ-son covered over with the skin of flesh...ah, such
a treasure in an earthen vessel. ‘Christ in you’ is no longer the
hope, it is the glory...Hallelujah!
“Many years have passed since we were ‘called out’. Even then
there were ‘leaders’...they too drew followers unto themselves, and
sadly there are still those today who play ‘follow the leader’. How
vain is man to think he has control; even more vain are their followers.
The truth which so many have missed is simply this: He called us out unto
Himself, to be His sons...and He, our Father. There were always the few
who were strangely different, eccentric little creatures who enjoyed the
beauty of isolation, the joy of solitude, and they heard only the voice of
their Beloved. They were not ‘torch bearers’...they were the light.
Today, my brothers, we are the light that shines in a world of darkness.
We are the stars of the Kingdom Morning, our Beloved has come to set up
His Kingdom within our inner son. He shall rule, with a rod of iron, the
earth that we are...till He has conquered us, and our inner son stands in
His perfect image; receiving once again the glory we had with the Father
in a beginning. If all voices were silenced, all pens put aside, and all
men laid to rest, the truth and light would only burn brighter within the
bosom of the sons. Nothing, and no one, can hinder the plans which the
Father made with His sons in eons past. All power, political or religious,
falls backward in the presence of God’s Christ. All preaching, teaching
and prophesying are but shadows in the light of God’s Christ; even the
sacred page fades in the presence of the Living Word.
“For you that are called and chosen of the Lord, this is the hour
of freedom and great holiness. This is probably the most serious and
sacred hour in the history of the world. That which the Father is doing
within His sons shall change the course of time and man. He has quickened
our spirits (the inner son), and our minds (the understanding); all that
remains to be conquered is the flesh. Now we wait in the silence of the
morning for our Mighty Christ who shall redeem and quicken our mortal
bodies. The creation is on tiptoe, waiting and longing, perhaps even
sensing, that the time is at hand for the manifestation of the sons of
God. The world and its people are crying out for freedom; proclaiming the
dawn of a new age...yet, how little they know of what THE DAWN shall
bring. Far greater is the rising of the sons than the sunrise of the
morning. They bring with them the fulfillment of all that the creation has
moaned for: Justice, Peace, Equality, and the
Some dear heart, a new reader of these precious truths, may inquire
— If all men are sons of God, and ultimately to be brought back into
oneness with the Father, what then is the hope of MANIFESTED SONSHIP? Why
is there a special calling of sons and a distinct dealing of the Father
with these sons? Manifested sonship is the
A man’s last words can be of supreme importance and significance.
This was no less true of Jesus. It is significant that in His Upper Room
Discourse with His disciples that somber night before the crucifixion, and
in His great prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John’s
Gospel, He should refer or make appeal at least sixty times to God as
Father. His first words following His resurrection were instructions to
Mary Magdalene to go tell His “brothers” that He was going to be
returning to His Father and to their Father. He then exhorts them with
tender concern just prior to His ascension not to try to establish the
Kingdom apart from their sonship relationship to God. They were to wait in
Sons of God know they are sons of God, not by the message of some preacher or writer, but by the revelation of the Spirit of God. Jesus revealed God as Father. How do we respond to it? A child responds to fatherhood when it reproduces the father’s likeness. The child inherits the father’s nature — but he must then develop the father’s character. Press on, saints of God — the hour of the great unveiling is at hand! By J. Preston Eby. [ENTER TEXT OF WRITING / SCRIERE HERE] |
Other Writings in This Series:
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