Concerning His Son

Romans 1:1-3 says, "the gospel of God...concerning His Son..." God's good news concerns His Son, not the law, not any kind of program, not doings or anything other than God's Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel of God is not focused on family, children, having a good marriage, going to church, serving others or the myriad of things that religious men have invented to serve God. It is focused on His Son!

What are you focused on? Where are you're thoughts focused? Where is your heart aimed? Is it on His Son? If not you're concerns are not God's concerns. His gospel concerns His Son!

God has no intention of you focusing on self improvement. He has already crucified you on the cross in His Son. You and I are no longer relevant. We are now in Christ Jesus. God has placed us there. (1 Cor. 1:30) So there is no longer any need to strive to be good for Christ is our goodness. We do not have to attempt to be righteous for Christ is our righteousness. If you are still working at it you are living as an Old Testament saint and are not living in the benefit of the New Covenant. Give up all the effort and look away to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.

The World System

The world system is simply the fruit of the tree of knowledge, good and evil being the fruit. Everything in the world, the desire of the eyes, the desire of the flesh and the pride of life is the inward desire to eat of that fruit. And the desire is controlled by the basic rules of the system which are do not touch do not taste, do no handle. (1 John 2:15; Col. 2:20-21) Everything that the natural man thinks and decides and even likes or dislikes is based on whether it is good for him or evil.

Every section of the system whether it be religion, politics, commerce, entertainment or military are based on these principles. To advance in any of them depends on how well you perform according to their various rules. Whether you fully engage in any of them or try to leave them and, for example enter into a monastery to flee the world, the world will go with you and you will find yourself in another expression of the same thing.

Many seeking Christians attempt to leave the world by entering into some form of religion thinking that, particularly if that religion is very spiritual or very "free" that they have left the world. Yet in the long run they discover that they have only entered another kind of system with its demands for some kind of perfomance.

What, then, is the answer? It is to enter into the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and to stay there. Only by remaining in Him are you out of the world. In the reality of its essence, the world is actually another person: the personified Sin in Romans seven which is the life of Satan. There are only two persons in which men and women can live, either in the old man, Adam, who was taken over be the devil, or Christ. (see 1 Cor.15:22)

To sin is to live in your self-life. Only when we live in Christ who is our life do we live without sin. John says that he that is born again does not sin. That's because in the realm of Christ we cannot sin because sin is not in His life. Jesus, who live as man, not as God, although He was God, could not sin because He always lived by His Father's life. He is the model for us to life in the same way. He said, "As I live because of the Father, he that eats me shall live because of me." Only in that day by day supply of the life of Christ can we live without sin and outside of the world-system.

"Leadership"

According to the Lord's word in Matt. 23, no one should be called father, teacher, master, etc. That is, no one should be a leader like the world has its leaders. In the world the leaders are over all their followers. However, in the kingdom of the heaven it is totally different. The Lord Jesus said that He didn't come to be served but to serve. Paul always identified himself as a bond slave of Jesus Christ.

If anyone desires to be a leader in the church, he must realize that he will not be over the saints but that he is entering into slavery. The saints will be over him and his life will be to serve them.

The Lord's view is absolutely different from that of the current practice in today's Christian world. Today, each church has its pastor who is in charge of the church and is over everyone. The Christian church in America has become a business and many pastors make a very good living from it. This is a worldly system just like a big corporation in the world. So it behooves each pastor to produce a big church in order to provide him his income and the power structure to give him his position and popularity. Does this sound like the church in the New Testament? In these institutions many of the members will go to their pastor for help, prayer and all spiritual things instead of going directly to the Lord Jesus as He intends them to do. America Christianity has evolved into the clergy/laity system that is hated by the Lord Jesus in Revelation two.

It is not the Lord's intention that any man would take the place of the Lord Himself. He is our Father, our Teacher and our Master. According to the new covenant everyone will know the Lord from least to the greatest among them.(Heb. 8) Christ indwells each believer and is well able to speak to and lead each one.

None of the Lord's people need a human "leader." They need the brothers who have been entrusted with the New Testament ministry to perfect them unto the same ministry and unto the building up of the body of Christ. But these brothers are not over the saints. They are only there to serve them the reality of Christ and then get out of the way so that the Lord can be in reality the head of His body and watch Him be the real leader among the saints.

Meeting Times and Places

How did Christians get the idea that meeting together should be at certain times and certain places? When you look at the gospels you see that when Jesus walked on the earth, He was always walking and meeting with His followers. Wouldn't it make sense that today, His followers would walk and meet the same way? That is to always be in a "meeting" with Him and with anyone else at any time.

At home in the family we would be in a meeting with Him and each other. When we get together with other believers whether in a home, a large building or in a coffee shop, we would be meeting with Him. Why not?

To have the thought that we only get together with other Christians at certain times and certain places gives us the wrong impression of what the Christian life is all about. Doesn't the Word tell us that we Christians are a people for the Lord's possession? That we are His 24/7, not only an Sunday morning? We all need a revolution in our thinking'

Christ vs. the Law

I Introduction

The creation of Adam and Eve was a marvel of the creative brilliance and power of God. They were created in the image of God and were designed to be His glory. But they had a deliberately created weakness. Although they did not know it, this weakness was a part of their make-up as a benefit to them and a means by which they would reach the Divine intention for them.

Not only did God create Adam with a weakness but He also created him with a good nature. At the end of the sixth day God declared that all that he had made was very good. This refers to the creation on the sixth day which mainly was the man. So man’s inclination according to his created nature is goodness. Man, basically, desires to do good. He wants to please God by doing good. So if he can determine what is good, then he will do his best to do it. All human beings have this inbred desire unless totally corrupted by some outside instrument.

However, the devil, no doubt, knowing man’s weakness and his good nature took advantage of it. He had a subtle goal when he deceived Eve and induced her to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He knew that, if he could get her and her husband to eat that tree, they would become independent from God. Once he had separated them from God, the weakness in them and their good nature would result in their living an unrighteous life and would bring the judgment of God upon them.

That weakness and our good human nature is still a part of us and we are continually being deceived because of it. This is why the law is so attractive to us. Especially since we have received Christ as our Savior and been regenerated, we want to do something to please God. We are eternally grateful to Him for His death on the cross which paid the penalty for our sins and rescued us from Hell. The law of our mind, being good, desire to do good to please this wonderful Savior. So we are attracted to the law to attempt to keep it. However, the weakness in our being plus the sin-nature we acquired when we ate the tree of knowledge makes the keeping of the law impossible.

The solution to this problem is the Life of another Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless we receive revelation from our Lord to see the provision that He made through His death and resurrection we will continue to struggle under out inborn weakness. It is possible to live without the certain result of a failing Christian life only by seeing a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ.

II The Tree of Life vs. the Tree of the Law (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)

A good writer or speaker will always write or speak according to a simple outline. First, he will tell you what he is going to tell you. Then he will tell you. Then, finally, he will tell you what he told you. Our God is the best writer of all. Therefore, His writing of the Bible is according to this formula. In Genesis one and two He tells us what He is going to tell us. Between Genesis Three and Revelation twenty He tells us and in Revelation twenty one and twenty two He tells us what He told us.

The first two chapters of Genesis portray the foundational principles of the Bible. In Chapter two you have a man before two trees. The implications that are revealed through this picture are staggering and awe inspiring. If we can see why God began His revelation with this simple picture, we will be able to unlock many passages in the Bible and to be enabled to live the Christian life according to the Lord’s revealed way.

Have you ever heard that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a picture of the law? Please think about it. What does the law do? It teaches us the difference between good and evil according the God’s standard. It teaches us and the teaching demands us to love God and to have nothing to do with idols. To love God is good. To worship an idol is evil. It teaches us to honor our father and our mother. To dishonor them is evil. Every other point of the law is the same. By it you know what is good and what is evil. So the tree of knowledge of good and evil a picture of the law.

The law of God demands that if you live by it, everything you do will be good and on the other hand you will not do anything unrighteous or evil. Only this kind of living will please God under His law. However, if you live by the law you will have to do it by your own strength. He will not help you do it. So it means that you will be your own god living by your own decision to work the good and abstain from the evil. You have become independent from God.

However, you are under a deep deception. If we live by the law, we are automatically brought under the domain of the devil. For his life is stronger than the good nature in us and we will be captured by sin and wind up in death.

No doubt you know that the tree of life is a picture of Christ as our life. So it is obvious that Christ is verse the law. Not only Genesis two reveals this but the rest of the Bible unveils that if a man or a nation attempts to please God by keeping the law the result will be sin and death.

This is the history of the nation of Israel and the history of the church. The minute any from of law keeping enters into a man’s thinking, he will enter onto the way of failure in living the Christian life..

Let’s think about it. Was there ever a king of Israel who did not fail? David? No he fell into adultery and murder. Solomon. No, he was seduced by too many women and their idols. How about Josiah? He was excellent yet in the end he died by fighting a battle that was not of God. How about Moses? Also no. Even eventually he was prohibited from entering into the good land due to his failure.

Eventually, there were only four who overcame. Joshua, Caleb, Joseph and Daniel. I believe that these men learned the secret and did not live by the tree of knowledge. It was their hearts desire to God Himself and their determination to stay with Him that saved them.

III Humanity after the Fall living by the flesh, resulting in murder, violence and the beginning of the World-system

After the first couple ate the tree of Knowledge and were expelled from the garden of Eden, their whole life was one infected by the poison of that tree.

Therefore, whatever they and there decedents did, unless they received a fresh word from the Lord, was governed by that tree and the mind-set it produced in them. All their thoughts and their resulting actions issued from a what-is-good and what-is-evil worldview. They would behave by considering that if something was good, they would do it and if it was evil they would refrain from doing it. But they were deceived.

The difference between Cain and Able is the difference between a man who lived by revelation and a man who lived by right and wrong. Cain knew that it was good to bring an offering to God. No doubt he had heard this from his father but when he heard it, it went into his mind as something good to do. He did not receive revelation as to what God desired as an offering, so he offered the work of his hands. That is, something good that he had done. His was rejected by God. He was disappointed and offended that his good works did not please God.

Why? Because he did what was right to do, he thought he would be commended for it. Are we not many times the same. We do some kind act for someone expecting our Lord to praise us for it and discover that somehow we have lost the presence of God. We don’t realize that we have again partaken of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We might even say to the Lord, “Haven’t I done this in your name?” But He would reply, “I never knew you in that thing you did. Depart from me.” In other words, “My presence will not be with you until you confess your sin and turn back to Me.”

The whole race of man after the fall, lived by the good and evil mind-set that got into their first parents and came to them by their birth. They must have some good things that they did and we know that there were many evil things that occurred but the Lord proclaimed that man was nothing but flesh.

Only a very few lived in the way that pleased the Lord. Two are of note; Enoch and Noah.

Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. He lived only about three hundred and sixty years which was a short life in those days. As fart as we know the only commendation the bible gives him was that he walked with God.

Here we have to stop a moment and think a little about Enoch’s life. “He walked with God.” This is a remarkable statement. It does not say that God walked with him but that he walked with God. When God went, he went. When God stopped, Enoch stopped. He did not moved ahead of God nor did He lag behind. He spent his life with God in the most obedient way always remaining in His presence.

If we would look at it according to the New Testament revelation we could say that Enoch was a man who always remained abiding in the Vine. He never departed from the life flow of the vine so that he has borne much fruit. Because he always stayed attached to God, the Lord could impart great revelation to him. He was the first to prophesy concerning the great flood, naming his son Methuselah, meaning, “when he is dead, it shall come.” Enoch also prophesied concerning the judgment of God coming on all the unrighteousness of the ungodly generation of mankind. (See Jude 3-4

Symzoasis

Just what is symzoasis? It is the fellowship with the Father and with His son Jesus Christ. What is fellowship? It is not what the common thought of fellowship is, ie. to hang out together, have some coffee and talk. This is just a natural concept. According to the Greek, the word is make up of two words: "common" and "being." The word "common" is the same word from which we get the word koine Greek, the common Greek language. The word "being" is the Greek participle "wv (gk.)" for the verb "to be." To have fellowship is have a common-being with the Father and His son, Jesus Christ and with one another. This is symzoasis.

The word "symzoasis" comes from two greek words also. First from the Greek "sum" which means together and then from the Greek "zwn (gk.)" which means life. But in the New Testament the word "zwn (gk.)" mainly refers to the life of God not to a natural life like the word "bios" which also means life but primarily the physical life. So we use the word symzoasis rather that the word symbiosis.

Symbiosis refers to two organisms that live together for the mutual benefit of each one. Like the probiotics that live in our gut. We benefit from these friendly bacteria and they benefit from us, their hosts.

Symzoasis refers to the divine Spirit in our spirit and mutually in all the born again children of God. Symzoasis not only indicates our organic oneness with our Lord but also with one another.

John, in his first epistle, is calling all the children, young men and fathers to enter into this organic symzoasis. To not do so is the miss the mark of God's design. In this symzoatic relationship there is the true brotherly life. Outside it is sin where we, no matter how we live, are missing the mark. Truly, to miss is the mark is to miss symaozsis.

Jesus said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me"

Matt. 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?

Jesus lives out the Father. He expresses the Father. He defines the Father. Whatever He is, He does, says or feels is the Father's life expressing itself in Him

It is, or should be, the same with us Christians. We are one with Him as He was one with the Father. We are one with Him as He was one with the Father. He is the head, we are the body. Both head and body are the Christ. Therefore we should live today as He lived then. He expressed the Father, so we express Christ. We are the Christ.Those who do not say that Jesus is the Christ are the instead-of-Christs. (1 John 2:22) Those who live as an instead-of-christ (anti-christ) are opposed to the organic reality of the body of Christ.

Even unbelievers say that the historical Jesus is called Christ. But if you begin to say that today Jesus is the Christ meaning that Jesus is the body as will as the head, you will be condemned and persecuted by religion, even the Christian religion. For though they know it is true, this undermines their hold on their little kingdom and threatens everything they hold dear: ie. their position and their financial income.

So we can say as our Lord Jesus did, "he that has seen us has seen the Christ!" However only if we continually abide in Him.

This organic Christ is what the book of First John reveals.

To Fulfill All Righteousness

Matt. 3:14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”
15 But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he permitted Him.

The explanation that Jesus gave to John as to why He needed to be baptized by John was to fulfill all righteousness. It was not that Jesus was sinful nor was it simply to obey His Father but to fulfill all righteousness.

The is an extraordinary statement. "To fulfill all righteousness!"

Since all had sinned in the first Adam, Christ, the last Adam, had come in the flesh, without sin, to pay the price for the sins of all mankind and then to enter resurrection and by the Spirit enter into those men who believed, to become their life and their living.

In order to do that He first had to live a life on earth as a man, living by the divine life rather than His own natural sinless self-life. Then go through all the things that men and women go through so that when He entered into to His people they could live by a human-divine life that He had already lived the perfect humanity on the earth.

However, this living could only come after the perfect Man had fulfilled all righteousness. The first Adam had sinned and all his descendants were partakers of his sin. God, being just and righteous demanded justice. For His law says that if a man sins the just penalty is death. According to God's righteousness we should pay the penalty of death. Yet another volunteered to take out place. Since we all have sinned only a sinless person could pay the penalty. That Person is Jesus.

His baptism pointed to the coming cross upon which He would die and pay that penalty for us all. So when He was baptized He went through death and resurrection, just as we do when we are baptized.

From the time of His baptism on, He lived a life of a perfect New Testament saint, that is a life under the cross yet in resurrection. He lived by the source of the divine life in His spirit as we are commanded to do in this age. From this time on He lived a life in the spirit according to the divine law of life which operated according the divine nature of our Father. Because He lived this kind of life by the Father's life, His experience was much higher that those attempting to live by the law of Moses. This is why the Lord could speak concerning the constitution of the Kingdom of the heavens in Matt. 5-7. This is the description of a person who lives a life sourced from the Spirit in his spirit. (John 3:6; 4:24)

So the life we are able live in our spirit is that God-man life that Jesus lived while He was on earth. It has nothing to do with any effort on our part. It is altogether by the faith of this Person, Jesus . The way He lived on earth, in a total expression of the Father, is the way He wants us to live in Him. So we, if we are willing to pay the price of our self-life, may also live this life sourced from our spirit.

Ministry

Matt. 7:21-23. The Lord says, "Not every one who says to Me, "Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who does the will of My Father who is in the heavens. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, was it not in Your name that we prophesied, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name did may works of Power? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness." (Knew here means approved. The same word in Rom. 7:15 is translated acknowledge.)

There are so many "ministries" in the Christian world today but how many of them does the Lore approve of? Unless we live in Him, in spirit, and allow Him to live out through us then no matter what we do for Him is not approved by Him. Because the Spirit has been poured out at Pentecost and at the house of Cornelius, whether or not we live in him men can work miracles, etc.

But our Father only works through His Son. He created the universe through the Son. He holds it together through the Son, He redeemed us through the work of the Son on the cross and through that work of His we are justified and have all the riches of the Triune God. Our Father's desire is that we would be related to everything through Christ. We relate to sin through Christ, we relate to others through Christ, we relate to our Father through Christ and even our relationship to ourselves is through our wonderful dear Lord Jesus. So even we also relate to any ministry through Christ. The ministry is not initiated by us nor if He does initiate the ministry through us is it carried out by us but by our continual abiding in Him and allowing Him to bear the fruit through us as a branch in the Him as the true vine.