Bible Believers' Newsletter 380
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; we are delighted to see you.
God bless you, Brethren. Today we will be studying the Attributes of God as theophany and glorified bodies, the salvation of the non-elect and damnation of the lost who are "unclothed." And cowards in the battle will not find a place, so keep on the firing line.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.Your brother-in-Christ,
Anthony Grigor-Scott
The World in the Palm of Their Hands: Bilderberg 2005
Through lies and obfuscations, Bilderbergers are desperately trying to foist a totalitarian, one-world government, a single global currency and a syncretic universal religion onto the unwilling world population.
Those of us who care deeply about the future of politics, domestic and international, cannot afford to ignore the fact that the grimly political One World Government is no longer merely a shadow subculture. It has, in fact, emerged as the dominant force in world affairs. Full story: onlinejournal.com onlinejournal.com
British Secret Service did Murder SS Chief Heinrich Himmler
Documents from the Public Record Office (record group FO 800, file 868), provide more than just a smoking gun. What is truly extraordinary is not so much that the conformists have willingly overlooked the inconsistencies for over sixty years but that those involved in, or aware of, the murder—who included Prime Minister Churchill himself—had kept quiet about it. Full story: fpp.co.uk
Want to use the Web? Your Fingerprint, Please
Soon, patrons of the Naperville Public Library—at least those wanting to use the Internet—will need more than a library card. They'll give a fingerprint.
It sounds like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel, but the new requirement is in many ways unsurprising. The library, like other Internet providers nationwide, has realized computer users aren't always who they say they are. And the technology it will use to check up on them is fairly simple—patrons will press a glass-topped scanner. Full story: csmonitor.com
US has Secret Prisons – Amnesty
A top Amnesty International official revealed on Sunday that the United States is running an "archipelago" of prisons all over the world, many of them secret camps into which people are being "literally disappeared". . .
Amnesty's gulag accusation, in which compared the US detention center to the Soviet Union's notorious prison camps, has been strongly rejected by the American President George W. Bush—who described the comparison as "absurd". . .
The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared—held in indefinite incommunicado detention without access to lawyers," [George] Schulz said. Full story: islamonline.com
Is Israel an American Value?
May 31, 2005 — This year's AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) the most powerful foreign lobby in Washington's conference ran with the slogan, "Israel, an American value." Accompanying this slogan is a logo showing an American flag juxtaposed as a six-pointed star.
Imagine if Mexico, Canada or Britain displayed such hubris through proclamation. Aside from the fact that Israel is a foreign nation and not one of our territories or states, AIPAC, its PR and government lobby is same alien organization under investigation for spying on us directly and indirectly with ties to several Israeli spy networks uncovered and disbanded since 2001, the latest being the Franklin/Feith affair exposed by CBS last summer. Full story: couplescompany.com
Comment: Ariel Sharon: "We Jews control America, and they know it."
If this Earthly Tabernacle were Dissolved
II Corinthians 2:15-16 describes Christian life as a sweet smelling fragrance of the revelation of Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1; Ephesians 5:2), discernible alike to "the saved" as to those who are perishing. To the perishing unbelievers in Spiritual Light the announcement of a dead Christ and the dead "letter" of an apparently lifeless Gospel is a fatal odor leading to the (just) death of their sinful soul; and to the other, the announcement of a risen and living Savior, ending in Life (to the penitent believer) is the aroma of Eternal Life (John 9:39). We are qualified for this ministry because we have not corrupted nor shunned to declare the whole counsel of God.
As Paul explains in chapter 4, we have this ministry because we have received God's mercy. We are not despondent because ours is a 'third pull' Message that will manifest what we say. "Having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully (which is darkness that would absorb and hinder rather than reflect and shine the Light of the Message), but by manifestation of the truth we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God" (Romans 2:16).
"But even if our Gospel is hid behind a veil of carnality that obscures the knowledge of God, it is hid only to those who are perishing, and veiled only to those who are lost." We as your servants shine forth the Light of Christ, the glory of God, which illuminates as once Moses shone with the brightness of His glory (Exodus 34:29-35; Hebrews 1:3).
"We bear this treasure in dying earthen vessels that the power of the ministry may be seen to be of the Lord, and not of man." Paul accounted himself a corpse dead to the world yet sustained in his trials by the resurrection Life of Jesus manifest in his mortal flesh. Being crucified with Christ his outward man was continually dying to the world. Being raised with Christ, having overcome the desires of his earthly tabernacle, he is able to minister spiritual Life to others. Death was working in the apostle, inasmuch as he was constantly exposed to death, but Life was working in the Corinthians through his ministry in the degree to which Paul was dead to the world and surrendered to Christ.
"We have the same spirit of faith by the Spirit of God, as David, who wrote, "I believed, therefore I spoke" (Psalm 116:10). We also believe, and therefore speak to make known the revelation of the Message without fear amidst afflictions and deaths, knowing by faith that at the first resurrection, He who raised the Lord Jesus for our justification will also raise us up, and present us along with you for fellowship in glory".
Paul is speaking of our presentation before the Bema or Judgment Seat of Christ where we will be commended by the Lord (II Corinthians 1:14; 5:10; I Thessalonians 2:19-20; Jude 24).
"For all things are for your sakes, that the grace (which preserves us in trials works Life in you), being made more abundant by the greater number of its recipients, might multiply thanksgivings to the glory of God. Therefore, despite our sufferings, we are not discouraged. Though our outer man is progressively wasting away, yet our inner self or born-again soul, filled with the Life of Christ, is renewed daily with fresh grace and faith, and hope. For the present light of affliction which is but for the present passing moment, is achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that exceeds beyond all measure the affliction. We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are visible are temporary and transitory; but the things which are not seen are eternal".
In II Corinthians 5:1-17 Paul elaborates on the hope of eternal glory in our resurrection body foreknown from eternity in the Logos or mind of God (Genesis 1:27-28; Romans 8:28-30; Revelation 5:8-13). With this revelation his objective is to be found pleasing to God at the Bema judgment. Hence, he endeavors to deal openly with men as with God, to preach the faith without compromise to give the Corinthians confidence to defend his ministry against his adversaries. Paul's constraining motive is the transforming love of Christ, by whom God has wrought reconciliation between Himself and men, and has given to Paul and all Christians the ministry of reconciling men to God by a clear understanding in His Word.
As throughout his ministry, Paul alludes to Old Testament symbols. Using an image taken from his trade as a tent-maker he contrasts the transitory nature of the tabernacle of Moses in its journey to the Promised Land, whose wooden frame and curtains wore out in course of time, with the permanent structure of King Solomon's temple. He types these with our mortal spirit and corruptible temporary body, and the eternal home of our theophany in glorified flesh.
The temple and the tabernacle were essentially one, with the same ark and the same cloud of glory. Such is the relationship between our "earthly" body and our "heavenly" resurrection body (I Corinthians 15:35-58), for the Holy Spirit of Promise is enshrined in the believer's heart as in a sanctuary (I Corinthians 3:16). As the Ark of the Covenant went first in dismantling the wilderness tabernacle, so the soul (which like the ark is sprinkled with blood of atonement and is the safe and sacred repository of the oracles of God in the inmost shrine), in the dissolution of the body; next the coverings were removed, answering to the flesh; lastly, the framework and boards, answering to the bones, which are last to give way (Numbers 4:1-49).
Hearkening back to II Corinthians 4:17, Paul explains "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). "For we assuredly (Job 19:25-26) know that if, for not all will die as many will be "changed" without "dissolution," but if the tent which is our earthly (not earthy) home is dissolved, we have (at this moment) a permanent perfect building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens".
Romans 14:8-9, "So whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living".
Gods thoughts are the eternal Attributes of Himself expressed in the Logos and will take material form in their designated and decreed season and time. From eternity God saw His elect already glorified. He sees not our sin and mistakes since in His great thinking Christ was slain to remit our ungodliness, cleanse us by the washing of water by the Word, and redeem us to right standing. In His thinking you were always an "angel" in fellowship with the saints. That angel is the theophany or appearance of your glorified form. At the first resurrection and body change of the New Testament saints it will take a material manifestation.
Romans 8:29-33, "Those whom God foreknew, He predestinated from eternity to be molded into the image of His Son, that He might become the firstborn among many brethren. (So Jesus is not the only Son of God, but the first of many reborn from the day of Pentecost). And those whom He predestinated He also called: and whom He called He also put into right standing with Himself: and whom He justified He has also glorified. What then shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He who did not withhold His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who shall lay any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies".
"In this temporary tabernacle we groan under the body's frailties and liability to death, waiting for our resurrection body which we cannot obtain except our "earthly tabernacle" is dissolved by death, or "changed." We groan, earnestly desiring to be found alive at the end of the dispensation and so escape dissolution by death (II Corinthians 5:1-4), and have our earthly body absorbed and transformed into Life." This longing desire for the heavenly glory has not been planted within us in vain but is evidence of the reality of our domicile "from heaven".
Believers don't shrink from the consequences of physical death but from the act of dying. In all ages the saints have longed to be found alive at the Lord's Coming so that their mortal body may be absorbed into the immortal without death. Faith does not divest us of all natural feeling, but subordinates it to higher feeling.
God has prepared us by justification, sanctification and new birth to be swallowed up in Life, giving us His Holy Spirit as a surety or guarantee (II Corinthians 1:22). And it is the Spirit who creates in us the earnest longing for our promised redemption and glory (Romans 8:23). With the earnest of the Spirit we are always of good courage, confident at the prospect of being "absent from the body," knowing that while we sojourn in our home in the body we are away from our home in the Lord. So our walk is governed by faith in that immortal hope, not by the outward appearance of present things.
Philippians 3:20, "For our citizenship belongs in heaven whence we look for the Lord Jesus Christ as our Deliverer".
We are not afraid but well content to die and migrate from our home in the body, and to come to our home with the Lord.
Although we would prefer to be found alive at the Lord's Coming and to be clothed upon with our glorified body (II Corinthians 5:2-4), feeling our sojourn in the body to be a separation from our true home "with the Lord" we are willing even to die, so that in theophany without our body we may go to be "with the Lord" (Philippians 1:23).
"With such assured confidence of being blessed, whether we die before, or are found alive at Christ's coming our only ambition is to be found well-pleasing to the Lord."
For we must all appear (Gk. 'phaneroo') or manifest our true character before the judgment seat of Christ (I Corinthians 4:5; Colossians 3:4). Although we are at all times manifest to God, at the Bema we shall be manifest to the assembled saints of all Ages and to ourselves, to receive His reward of grace proportioned to "the things done in the body" (II Corinthians 9:6-9; II John 1:8). Justice requires that substantially the same body which has been the instrument of the unbelievers' sin should be the object of punishment: proof of the essential identity of the natural and the resurrection body.
By the grace of God the saints are sinless and spotless. We are not merely forgiven; we are "justified" and righteous as though we never sinned before our new birth. And because the natural marriage and divorce types the Spiritual, before we could be united in love with the Lord, our first husband, the nature of Satan or "old man" that ruled our soul had to be dead to us.
Sin is unbelief in the revealed Word of God: nothing more. People smoke, drink, lie, steal and kill because they are sinners or unbelievers in God's Word. These evils are not sin but are the fruit or manifestation of unbelief which is sin. I John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin (or disbelieve the revealed Word); for His seed remains in him (by faith): and he cannot unbelieve, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest (Gk. 'phaneroo') as to their true character, and the children of the Devil: whosoever does not practice righteousness and does not love his brother manifests that he is not in God's Family".
John 5:24, "He who hears My Word, and believes on Him who sent Me has eternal life, and shall not come to the judgment but is passed from death unto Life".
So the Bema Judgment for the saints is a judgment of reward in recognition of our service to Christ. The individual saints are personally introduced to the Man Jesus Christ and announced with approbation to the saints of all Ages at the Judgment Seat of Christ before the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. The dignity of our station and reward will be determined by our motives and our objectives (not mere external acts) and the excellence or mediocrity of our character manifesting ('phaneroo') Christ on earth.
I Timothy 5:24-25, "Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid." We saints make a rod for our own back when we do wrong, and will receive retribution in this life except we repent and make restitution. Even though Christ's atonement extends to the whole life of the saints, its influence upon individuals must be exerted by means of a progressive repentance as the Light of revelation cleanses our walk and brings us to maturity in the faith. And although we are secured against loss and the judgment of sinners, we may yet have the potentials of our reward diminished in proportion to the liberality or meanness of our sowing.
A man's moral sins are recorded in the books of the sinners (Daniel 7:10; Revelation 20:12) and must be received again in corresponding retribution (Galatians 6:7; Ephesians 6:8; Colossians 3:25). At the general resurrection after the Millennium, all whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life will rise in the bodies in which they lived. Those whose names were never in or have been blotted from the Book of Life will be cast into the Lake of fire. "This is the second death" (Revelation 20:12-15, Ezekiel 18:4, 20).
Those whose names remain in the Book of Life are "the saved." They have missed the Wedding Supper and will never enter New Jerusalem which is the Bride served by the saints of all Ages, but they will be granted into eternal Life. And although salvation is purely of grace independent of works, these like the elect may have a greater or less reward, and their station in the new earth will reflect the discharge of their responsibilities in this life.
"Knowing therefore the terrors of the coming judgment in store to unbelievers, we persuade men; but (whether men who hear our preaching recognize our sincerity or not) we are made manifest to God as acting on such motives "having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling God's Word deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel is hid, it is hid to them who are lost" (II Corinthians 4:2). I trust our motives and objectives are also manifest to your consciences," in which case you should have no "terror" before the judgment seat of Christ.
In this exposition of II Corinthians 4 and 5 we have seen that there will be a resurrection and judgment to commend the righteousnesses of the saints; also a resurrection and judgment of reward or retribution and loss. We saw that there is to be a translation of the end-time Bride without death and discussed theophany and glorified flesh bodies.
One of our subscribers wrote on this subject:
Question: A particular minister teaches that when sinners die they go with their theophany into hell and resurrect with same to be judged. On the other hand I told him that only the righteous have a covering (theophany) and sinners have no theophany to go to at death but are naked according to II Corinthians 5.
Response: A "theophany" is a visible manifestation of God to man. This is why we sometimes refer to it as a "WORD form body," for our theophany is in appearance "the substance" of our hoped for glorified body, and "the evidence of things not generally seen in this life." Like the horses of Fire and chariots of Fire (or Shekinah) seen by Elisha but withheld from the sight of his servant Gehazi, the theophanies of the saints are in a dimension withheld from our sight by the veil of mortal flesh which is generally restricted to three dimensions.
Therefore only the elect have a theophany, because the theophany is a WORD form body. It exists in the Logos or mind of God and has the appearance of our glorified body foreknown of God from the foundation of the world (John 17:5). It reflects the Attributes of the Logos we express as we overcame by prayer and faith in His Word, for a life lived by the Word is the Word expressed.
The lives of sinners do not a reflect God's Word so they are not a spark of the Shekinah or Logos of God. They have an angel, but if their name has been removed from, or was never on the Book of Life, it is not a "theophany" or "visible manifestation of God." If they are lost or Serpent's seed, their "angel" is not Light but darkness like the shadow photographed over a woman in Brother Branham's congregation. The "angel" of the lost may manifest as a demon of deafness, blindness, anger, disease, etc., and because it is "unclothed," not necessarily in a human or other form designed by God.
The "covering" or "clothing" of which Paul spoke was in fact a material body as he explained in I Corinthians 15:35-58, and Brother Branham taught in Things that are to Be, p. 33:106. So the answer to this question is one of fact but also semantics. Sinners do have an angel, but not a WORD form body. If their name remains in the Book of Life, their "angel," already sanctified, by virtue of its presence on the Book, will be united with the Word and granted into eternal Life. Only then could it be regarded as a visible manifestation of God. I hope this clarifies those points.
Here is something for Two Souls discerners:
The little prostitute at the well told Jesus, "I perceive You are a prophet. I know when Messiah comes, He will discern the thoughts and intents of the heart" (John 4:1-26; Hebrews 4:12).
This manifestation ('phaneroo') of the Messianic sign vindicated the predestinated seed in her soul that was God's thought from the foundation of the world. So when He replied, "I am He," she recognized that seed of the "letter" transformed into Spirit-quickened flesh and blood in her ears and before her eyes. Confirmed faith dispelled all darkness of unbelief from her soul and conviction made her heart a written epistle at one with the living Word for her hour.
Reborn when the Spirit was granted to regenerate the New Testament Saints, death took her to her theophany in the sixth dimension of God's thinking. There to this day she bears her matured and glorified appearance in Spirit as she awaits the resurrection of her glorified material body.
Brother Branham said, "There is only one form of Eternal Life. If you've got eternal Life then you, yourself, was in God's thinking before the world was created. You're an Attribute of His thinking, 'cause eternal never did begin, or never can end. You're a part of God's economy always. It's just reflecting."
"It's becoming . . . Now, you've got one more picture to develop, that's death. Then the negative becomes positive. Then you're in the Bride, and with Christ. As He taught, like husband and wife today, so God, Christ and the church will be the same" (The Voice of the Sign #23:5; p. 8:61-62; I Corinthians 6:17).
What is your eternal Life, but the Spoken Word Seed of God you received by the foolishness of preaching and manifest through your flesh as you die to your ten senses in order that God's anointed Word might have preeminence and become flesh in you! As Jesus Christ was "the beginning of the creation of God," you become a continuation of the same creation as Eve was a continuation of her husband, not a separate creation. It is the kingdom taking form, the Logos in the process of becoming glorified flesh.
Luke 8:11, "The seed is the Word of God".
Romans 10:13-17, "Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed our report? Faith comes by hearing, and understanding by the Word of God".
Like that little woman at the well, we receive the predestinated seed for our day not as the self-styled "Jews" presume, from our mother at birth. Were this the case, would the tribes of Gad and Asher, Dan and Naphtali be Israelites? Because the mothers of these patriarchs were Syrian concubines. Likewise the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh whose mother was the Gentile Egyptian, Asenath. Many Scriptures illustrate the folly of such teaching.
Before his conversion Paul looked for Messiah to establish a temporal, not a Spiritual reign. In II Corinthians 5:10-17 He speaks of "Christ," not Jesus: for he had not personally known Jesus in the days of His flesh, but he had looked for Christ. After his conversion he no longer "conferred with flesh and blood" (Galatians 1:16). He had this advantage over the Twelve, that as one born out of due time he had never known Christ save in His heavenly life. To the Twelve it was "expedient that Christ should go away" that the Comforter should come and so they might know Christ in the higher spiritual aspect and in His new Life-giving power, and not merely "after the flesh" (Romans 6:9-11; I Corinthians 15:45; I Peter 3:18 4:1, 2).
As they do to this day, Judaizing Christians doubtless prided themselves on the presumed fleshly (II Corinthians 11:18) advantage of their belonging to Israel, the nation of Christ, or on their having seen Him in the flesh, and thence claimed superiority over others as having a nearer connection with Him (II Corinthians 5:12; II Corinthians 10:7). As Paul shows, our true aim should be to know Him Spiritually as "new creatures"—neither Hebrew nor Gentile, bond nor free (II Corinthians 5:15, 17), and that outward relations towards Him profit nothing (Luke 18:19-21; John 16:7, 22; Philippians 3:3-10).
This is at variance with both Judaeo-Roman Mariolatry and transubstantiation. II Corinthians 5:16, "Henceforth we know (Gk. 'eido') no man after the flesh: even though we have known (Gk. 'ginosko') Christ after the flesh, henceforth we know (Gk. 'ginosko') Him no more." Two distinct Greek verbs are used here for "know"; the first ("know we no man") means "to be personally acquainted with"; the latter ("known Christ . . . know . . . more") is to recognize, or estimate. As a Pharisee, Paul's estimate of the expected Messiah was carnal but is not so any more.
II Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation [and neither Hebrew nor Gentile]: old things have passed away; behold all things are become new. [Therefore] we know Christ no more after the flesh [as He has entered His new heavenly life by His resurrection and ascension], so all who are in Christ [or united to Him by faith as the branch is in the vine] are new creatures (Romans 6:9-11). "New" in the Greek implies a new nature not a new soul, a nature not merely recent but different from anything previously existing, and able to display the Token or Life of Christ.
The Two Souls cult is found in the Babylonian Talmud described by Jesus as, "the traditions of men which make the Law and the prophets of no effect." Contrary to this teaching the only soul one will even own is the soul that entered his body with the spirit of mortal life. Our soul receives the "seed" of God which is the Word of God, not at birth, or the age of accountability, nor from a Yiddish mother, or by "signs and wisdom," but by "the foolishness of preaching" (I Corinthians 1:17-31).
I Peter 1:22-25, "Since you have purified [not replaced] your souls by obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God that lives and abides forever. For all flesh [seed] is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. Grass withers and its flower falls away: but the Word seed of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached to you".
The predestinated seed was not in you at birth but was preached to you by your parents, your grandfather, Sunday school teacher, friend or minister. You received it through your ears and eyes. We only ever have one soul, but we can have more than one husband. This is why marriage and divorce is a part of Scripture, but that old husband or nature of the world that was on your soul has to die, or become dead to you, before God can join you, your soul, with your new Husband the Word (Mark 10:9; Ephesians 4:30).
II Corinthians 5:1-4 speaks of the resurrection or glorified body which is already in heaven in the mind of God like a film positive. This is the "angel," theophany or celestial body and image in the glorified appearance of the saint as explained in chapter 4.
"White robes" granted to the Israelite martyrs under the Fifth Seal at the end of the Gentile dispensation (Revelation 6:11), worn already by the Church Age saints (Revelation 7:13), signify their righteousnesses, not their theophany body. The distinction might be somewhat academic as the righteous possess a theophany. However, those who are not saints are naked of the atoning Blood of the Word, like Adam and Eve after the Fall before God placed them under the blood of natural lambs. So until the appeal at the White Throne Judgment, their righteousness in not confirmed.
"White robes" were given in consolation to the Israelite martyrs, recognizing that as they had honored the Lord in martyrdom for what they knew of His Word, having been blinded by their rabbis as the "foolish virgin" have been blinded by their ministers or their own slothfulness, He will grant them into eternal Life at the White Throne Judgment. Revelation 6:11 is an assurance or promise like John 20:22, "Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, Receive the Holy Ghost," signifying what would take place on the day of Pentecost (Isaiah 55:11).
Question: In the second resurrection the saved and sinners rise in the bodies in which they lived on earth to be judged according to their deeds in that flesh. And whereas the saved are granted eternal life, the sinners and Cain's people will be annihilated . . . He used Lazarus and the rich man to illustrate that sinners and righteous both wear theophany.
Response: Perhaps I am being a little too pedantic. Both were in angelic form, but only the angels of the righteous were a visible manifestation of God—theophany.
Brother Branham said, "It isn't promised that sinners has angels; it's only the redeemed has angels. Did you know that? The angels of the Lord encamp about those that fear Him. Now, angels are messengers. I want you to notice it's so perfect, and it'll prove predestination to you" (C.O.D., p. 1154:Q381).
Question: Misinterpreting Romans 9 to support their argument, many claim that today all men are from Adam's race, and that God created some people to be saved and others to be lost. They make no reference to free moral agency, God's omniscience or foreknowledge.
They also forget the Scriptures such as: "this is the blood of My New Covenant shed for many: [in Adam's race]. For God so loved the world which He created [Adam's race] that He gave Jesus as a Pascal Lamb so that whosoever [from Adam's race] believes is saved, and who does not is damned [although] it's not the will of the Father that any should perish" but some choose to perish because they reject their atonement.
Response: Jacob and Esau were born of godly parents in Adam's righteous bloodline but two of Esau's three wives were from the lineage of Cain, and today Edom dominates Israel and the Gentile world as prophesied by his father, Isaac (Genesis 27:39-41), by Daniel 9:27, and Jesus Christ (Luke 21:24).
Two Souls people once taught that Esau was physical Serpent's seed, but this is unscriptural. Esau's impulsive nature served his worldly senses without respect to the Divine responsibility and he forfeited the birthright, a type of election, becoming spiritual Serpent's seed. Upon reaching that "place of no more repentance" his name was removed from the Book of Life and he is lost.
There certainly are physical Serpent's seed on earth today as Moses and Jesus prophesied. The majority of world population is not from Adam's race (Genesis 6:1-4; Matthew 24:37). But we can all trace ourselves back to mother Eve as Adam named his adulterous wife who was carrying the seed of the Serpent and his seed, because, "she is the mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20). God records how the Serpent's seed settled in Canaan after the Flood then spread around the world. They forfeited their land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob but Israel intermarried with the Canaanites. (See the thirteen-part teaching Sermon, Esau, Edom, and the Trail of the Serpent).
God created Adam's race for salvation and eternal fellowship. He is no respecter of persons and placed each one of Adam's sons on the same basis as Adam and Eve in the beginning with free choice to obey or disobey and the certainty of reward or punishment. He did not create Cain's race which is a satanic hybrid of animal and man, and since Cain's race is not His creation it cannot be redeemed.
Question: I hope I perfectly understood the majority of points so please help me confirm as I summarize my understanding below as follows.
We were attributes or thoughts with God before the Logos manifested and God foresaw all of Adam's race as theophany (angels).
Response: Yes, we were created in eternity before the beginning, which is how we have eternal Life. God's thoughts are eternal Spirit and Attributes of Himself. There He foresaw all the redeemed of Adam's race in Spirit form—theophany (or angels).
Question: These Angels are each male and female at the same time like chips off the Logos.
Angels as messengers or ministers of God are men: women are forbidden to teach, preach or publicly minister the Word of God (I Timothy 2:8-15). Supernatural angels may be considered both male and female like man when he was first formed, because our elect soul, which is the feminine of God, is united with our Husband the Word. However in stature, the angels or theophanies exhibit the glorified appearance of the saints, whose resurrection bodies cannot reproduce because the reproductive glands are neither present nor needful (Matthew 22:30). For God's Family is born by His Word, not human desire, and since His seed is all foreknown, we are a finite number. Besides this, as an eternal people there will be no infants, aged, sick or infirm, as we will be forever in our prime.
Question: We are to grow into the image of this glorified form that God foresaw in the beginning. Surely Cain and his offspring are not in the picture at all and are 'cherem'.
Response: Our aim is to grow into the image of God's Word rather than the physical form He foresaw. Cain and his race will be absent because he has no kinsman redeemer.
Question: God's motive and purpose is to share His glory (express His attributes and eternal Life) with man. In short, He wanted to make a creation of Himself to express Himself as flesh and for this reason the Logos was manifest in the flesh of Jesus as the beginning of this creation of God.
Response: God will not share His glory with another for His eternal purpose is to gather glory to Himself through the love of those who have received His love for them and united with His mind so that their lives become a furtherance of Himself and reflect the glories and beautiful perfections of His nature, thus giving Him glory.
The visible appearance of the Logos was an amber or emerald colored Light, for God is Light and the source of natural and Spiritual Life. It later manifest in the theophany of a Man who communed with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. As Melchisedec it received tithes of Abraham and served him communion after he overcame in the battle of the kings. Later it visited Abraham as a created Man who proved He was the Word by discerning the thoughts and intents of people's hearts. And still later as the virgin-born flesh of Jesus Christ.
From the day of Pentecost the Attributes of the Logos have manifest the present Truth in the flesh of His Family, the New Testament saints.
Question: From the day of Pentecost the Logos manifest in PART through regeneration in the flesh of His children, the New Testament saints of the Church Ages who are His Family and the furtherance of Himself. Of course the Logos was also manifest in PART in the flesh of the Old Testament saints, not as the Bride and Queen of Christ the King, but as servants and members of the Bride's nation.
In order to make its choice a soul manifests from the point of natural birth in order to unite with her angel by receiving and manifesting the part of the Word for its day.
Response: Yes
Question: This angel yonder deals with the soul by revelation of the Spirit in order to develop her into the Positive.
Response: Brother Branham said, when you are born-again you have "heard from your theophany." In other words, you have recognized your place and position in the Word, or united with your Husband, Christ the Word. The Word is the Holy Spirit; it is God in a form we can receive by faith. Once we have united with the Word we mature and grow into His likeness, becoming one by agreement in the faith or revelation of Jesus Christ. "Let the mind that was in Christ be in you".
Question: Now the choice a soul makes here is like when a woman agrees to unite with her groom by accepting his proposal (i.e. choosing unto election) or rejecting his proposal and remaining forever single and struggling on her own. Those who remain sanctified being separate and not mingled with the old husband, the nature of the world, would be granted Life at the White throne. (Saved).
Response: Correct. One such group of "the saved" is the foolish virgin: "foolish" because they were dilatory and failed to "press into" the faith or recognize that their pastor had the "letter" of the Message without the "Spirit" and thus did not encounter the revelation of the Word for their day. The fact they are "virgins" proves they are a holy people. Another group is the Fifth Seal Hebrews who have been martyred for their stand for Yahweh Torah during the Gentile dispensation. Children who die before the age of accountability, those who have been good and kind to the Bride, those martyred during the tribulation for refusing to serve the Roman beast or its image, and all those in Adam's race whose names will be found written in the Book of Life at the White Throne Judgment.
Question: Here is the analogy: As the sun is the beginning of the stars which all chipped off from it, flying into space till some found their respective positions and shine, and others kept wandering not able to find their proper place and quenched, that is a representation the final record of all in Adam's race. All are numbered in the Logos as the stars were in the sun. Some find their positions as Sons by pressing on to the mark of high calling thus shining very bright, many could not attain this height but not taking the wrong path eventually got a place in the galaxy shining less whereas majority will become incandescent in that they took the downward path.
Response: Yes.
Question: This explains the concept of demons. Those souls in Cain's race are automatically lost as they have no angels or celestial representation and are imprisoned in Hades.
Response: They have an angel as they have a soul, but it has no representation in heaven as Jesus is the last Adam, not the last Cain. They cannot be redeemed because they are not part of God's spoken Word creation but a hybrid perversion of His Word like the "mule" or a "liger." And because they were not in God's creative thoughts at the beginning, they will be absent in the end.
Their counterpart is the lost of Adam's race whose souls are also imprisoned there. Their angels fell because they were not immersed in the developing solution of the revealed Word of God in order to conform to the image of that Word.
Question: So their angels so-called, become demons, which have no form but take any form. In fact they have no celestial angel or theophany after life's journey or having crossed the line of mercy to the point of no repentance like Esau.
Response: Correct
Question: I understand this study proves the following;
a) Predestination or election by God's foreknowledge of the free choices men would make on earth.
b) It is not the will of God that any of Adam's race should perish but men choose their own destinations—whether to return Home or be lost as wandering stars (vagabonds) not having a place on God's earth.
c) To redeem is to buy back or place back in its proper position what was lost.
d) God is redeeming but not replacing our souls. The study destroys the Two Souls dogma.
e) There is no pre-existence of Souls. So Jesus did not pre-exist but as the sum of God's thought (Word) the Logos.
f) A soul that is united with the Word for its day is the theophany (clothing) in making. Which is inseparable (male and female of Genesis 1:27 . . .
Response: Yes, but that is a compound illustration for instruction.
Question: . . . in whose final image we are after the whole process of life). We enter into the theophany or Celestial image after life's final journey of choices and are thus clothed.
g) Jesus prepared a way for the Church Age saints to enter into their mansions (theophany) after death by delivering to them the gospel of their salvation and mediating for their ignorance of the fullness of the Word. We the Caagsone bride have the way already made and are now being changed by "that which is perfect" into the image of our theophany foreseen of God, which we shall wear complete at the translation. "When He shall appear we together with the Church Age saints shall be like Him even like unto His glorified body".
Response: The "way" prepared for Christ's end-time Bride was the revelation of the Seven Seals. We are sealed by our understanding and manifest agreement with that fullness of the Word—"that which is perfect" (or complete). Since we now have the perfect interpretation of the Word we need no Mediator. Our aim is to reproduce the image of Christ the Word by having the Token on display in our life.
Question: Please explain how and when Lucifer came into existence. Some teach that Lucifer is a "clone" from the Logos. In contrast I know he is not part of the Logos but I don't quite understand his origin.
Response: If we say Lucifer is a "clone" we are teaching Manichaeism which is Dualism of the Masons: that Lucifer is God, and (unfortunately) Jesus is God also. Dualism. A "clone" is an asexual reproduction resulting in an exact replica of the donor. That would make two "Logi".
Lucifer is one of God's creations. As God's right hand man, he patrolled earth when it was a volcanic inferno. He was the chief cherub or guardian of the way to Tree of Life and is called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" and way of reproach, "the sum of wisdom and beauty," proving the way back to the Tree of Life is not by theology but by kneeology. Like you and I, Lucifer was placed on free moral agency, but his knowledge of God's plans was according to the "letter" without the "Spirit," and enthralled with his own wisdom and beauty, he became trapped by the pride of life and came to a place of no more repentance. He does not have a body of his own and will inhabit the bodies of men and beasts that yield to him.
Question: The arch-angels, seraphims and cherubims.
Response: There is only one Archangel or Chief Angel, and that is Christ. The seraphim were the incense burners that brought the worshiper (by his prayers and revelation) into the Presence of the Lord. They type the seven Church Age Messengers and seven portions of the Spirit that anointed them. We discussed this subject in Newsletter 143.
Question: Brother Branham made a statement like: "How you are acting now is how you are behaving somewhere else, if you are a doubter here, it shows you are one up there "please explain further in the light of the topic".
Well, if you are a man of faith here, your life will reflect your theophany in another Place, because the Theophany is your Husband under whose submission you joyfully serve, whose glory or shame you are. Faith is an attribute of the Holy Spirit. If you are a doubter here it indicates you are without "white robes." The soul has but one choice, "faith," or "doubt:" that is, belief, or unbelief. The decisions that determine your behavior in this life also determine and reflect your eternal destiny in "another place".
Question: Were all these angels (theophanies) in fellowship with God in the beginning and acted out before manifesting their natures on earth by the behavior of men what they are?
Response: Your "angel" is the product of your decisions. You are not the product of your angel. God being omniscient cannot add to his knowledge. All His knowledge He always had. Therefore, before His Spoken Word manifest even one speck of star dust, He knew you and what your destiny would be because He foreknew how you would exercise your free choice. Therefore He knew you would come under the Blood of the Lamb. He knew your sins would be remitted, and that through the new birth you would become a member of Christ's sinless, spotless Bride. Therefore He knows nothing of your past sins, because Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world in His great thinking, and you were crucified in Him. You were accounted dead in Christ on Calvary where you paid for your sins as an Attribute in the murdered Logos; and when Christ was raised from the tomb, you rose in Him. Hence, being judged and having paid the penalty of death you cannot be convicted again and are even now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus in the theophany of your resurrection body (Hebrews 9:27; 10:15-26; 6:4; II Corinthians 5:13-21).
The theophanies of the saints were in fellowship with God in Christ before time, because they are God's foreknowledge of His Attributes, and therefore sinless. They are God creating Himself in the form of His Family, waiting the passage of time when like the Old Testament saints, they will put on glorified flesh (John 17:6). nl380.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations overseas. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
Bible Believers' Church
Gunnedah NSW
Australia 2380e-mail Bible Believers URL Bible Believers' Website
PowerPoint presentation The Second Coming of Christ
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