#340 Kingdom: Going on To Employment

HEB 6:1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press onto maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, [2] of instruction about washings, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

This Scripture says “Let us press on to Maturity” or the word may be translated as perfection or completion or to full growth. I am loosely translating this in the light of the Kingdom as to “full employment!”

This refers to the Kingdom as God’s government that will employ those who are qualified. This may be a new thought because we may have considered the Kingdom to be a place of eternal rest and enjoyment with not much to do. In this study we want to present the possibility that the Kingdom Government of God will be very active with a universe to rule over.

Dan 7: 27] `Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him.

Dan 7: 18] `But the saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come.’

Isa 9: 6] For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. [7] There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore.

The Kingdom IS the Government of God that will be a Kingdom similar to the Kingdom of David. In other words there will be Government of people who function under the sovereign Head and government of Jesus Christ, the Son that was born to us.

Rev 3: 21] `He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

Overcoming and going on to maturity is the requirement to take our place in the Kingdom Government of God. This is what I mean by “Going on unto Employment.” The opposite of this is “going on to Unemployment” for eternity. Of course God has other “levels of employment” also.

Rev 2: 26] `And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO him I will give authority over the NATIONS; [27] AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father;

This level of overcoming and development is required to rule over the nations of the earth during the millennium and possibly the New Earth in eternity.

Gen 1: 26] Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” [27] And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. [28] And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This was God charge to first Adam when he was given dominion over all the things on the earth and over all the earth. God revealed His purpose for man back in Genesis1 to be rulers over the earth. Adam fell from the grace of God and from his call to rulership over the earth. Adam failed to qualify for rulership because of His independence from God. We will never qualify to rulership with the natural life or the fallen life of Adam. It is for this reason that we must experience an “exchange of life.” That means exchanging the “natural life” for the Life of God, pictured in the Garden as Tree of Life. Also in Revelation 22 as The TREE OF LIFE.

However, with all this “failure” on Adam’s part, God never changed His mind OR His purpose to have man and his genealogy to rule over all the earth. The first Adam failed but the Last Adam didn’t fail. He and His Genealogy OR the New Species that have come from Him will follow on to complete God’s original purpose. They will “go on to Employment.”

To be “Employed” in the highest order of the Kingdom demands that we qualify. The requirement is to grow to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. To be conformed to His Image and to be without spot or blemish and to be holy and blameless.

All this is obviously beyond our capacity as men who were born after Adam. This is the reason God has commanded “All Men” everywhere to repent and be saved. In other words, God has not made repentance and salvation an option. It is a commandment. However, salvation must include many areas of growth and adjustment if we are going on to the maturity! And that is required by the Kingdom Government of God. Most ministers are aware that most born again persons will not surrender themselves to God in that dimension where God can work in them the “Perfection of Christ.” However, a few will find that narrow gate into that dimension and God will be able to complete that depth of work in them. But how do we begin such an awesome journey?

2 Pet 1:2] Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; [3] seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. [4] For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Peter wrote this to the church of born again believers who were certainly baptized in water and filled with the Holy Spirit. His encouragement was for these believers who had received EVERYTHING necessary to live a life of godliness and to become partakers of the Divine Nature, to now appropriate EVERYTHING that had been so graciously provided. The reason was because we must arrive at the entrance of the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I assume that means in this life!!

2 Pet 1: 10] Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; [11] for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.

God has provided everything for our development but unless we appropriate that provision, experientially, it certainly will not benefit us or help us fulfill God’s eternal purpose.

We are not only called to receive Him and His Life, imparted by the new birth, but we are called to a full participation in His Kingdom Government. Many Christians assume that is automatic when we are born again. However, even a casual understanding of scripture will reveal that the Kingdom is given upon the basis of fruit and we must qualify and be counted worthy.

Mat 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it.

In the parables dealing with fruit bearing, those that ignored the Master’s requirement to produce and increase what they were given, heard some very harsh words and were cast out.

This ignorance of God’s will and God’s way is the result of an undeveloped spirit and a dominating soul. God never intended the soul to become the dominating force in man but that the spirit of man would develop through the eating from the Tree of Life continually. God designed the soul to be subservient to the spirit and respond to the spirit as the dominating force in man. Man’s spirit then was to be subservient to the Spirit of God and be led by Him.

It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit must work successfully in each believer to reverse these functions of the soul and the spirit of man. To use the anointing of the Spirit of God upon the soul to get spiritual results has not produced what we had hoped it would produce.

Our theory is that the next level of ministry must out from the developed spirit, functioning under of the anointing of the Seven Spirits of God. This, actually, is the beginning of spiritual ministry which is out of a “life union” with the Spirit of Christ.

“Sonship” then means living by His Life. This experience is called “living by the Life of another.” While this truth has been lost by much of the church, it is still the plan and the intension of God for spiritual ministry.

“Sonship” means living by His Life but not just by the life we receive in the new birth experience. “Sonship”, as we are interpreting it, means living in “Life union” with Christ as seen in John 15 in the Vine-branch union. Paul explained it this way:

Gal 2:20] “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in [or of] the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.

Paul was speaking of the Vine-branch union and not just a born again experience. When “we” no longer live [ from a “me” center, by our own cleverness and by the natural life, psuche] and Christ has become our life, He will no longer permit us to live for our own purpose and goals. Why? Because all this carnal activity, to fulfill our own personal goals, will never produce Kingdom results. Whatever is done out of our natural strength and personal goals will never produce Kingdom results.

We could probably say that there is NO fulfilling of His purpose UNTIL we have learned to eat from the Tree of Life continuously and function out of His Life and cease from trying to accomplish anything out of our own cleverness and personal persuasion.

Phil 4:13] I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Many assume that God will strengthen our physical qualities so we can fulfill our calling. But permit me to rephrase this statement to include the transformation of the inner life.

I can do all things when my strength comes only from Christ.

One of the very serious errors in the church today is for believers to be left grafted into the wrong root and still calling this “conversion” or “salvation.” Jesus Christ becomes an entirely different root than Adam and provides an entirely different kind of Life.

Rom 11: 22] Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. [23] And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. [24] For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

Of course we know this was spoken about Israel to the Gentiles. However, the principle remains the same when we are speaking about Adam and Christ. We must be entirely severed from Adam and then be entirely grafted into Christ if we are going to complete God’s purpose for the church. This grafting in is seen in the Vine-branch union in John 15. In other words we cannot be grafted into the life of Adam and also be grafted into the Life of Christ. Separation from Adam is not just a Christian preference but is absolutely essential for any growth into Christ and God’s eternal purpose.

Then it holds true that once we partake of the Tree of Life we must continue to eat from that Tree to maintain the Vine- branch union with His Life. All the trees in the garden were good for food but ONLY one was good for Life. If we miss this experience of His Life, how will we differ from first Adam?

My theory is that ONLY by being grafted fully and exclusively into the True Vine will we be able to fulfill God’s eternal purpose and complete His plan for our time here on this earth. All the carnal activity that we see is just producing more weeds for the fire of 1 Corinthians 3.

I keep reminding myself that God’s Divine plan requires our participation with Him, our appropriating everything He has provided, and our qualifying through the development of our inner man. His plan is cut in stone and will not change or be modified for any man because it is non-negotiable. It involves His Kingdom and His sovereignty!

His plan requires our full participation in His Life and not more human effort and personal cleverness. We must soon come to the conclusion that our ideas are irrelevant and it is ONLY those who are led by the Spirit of God that are the Sons of God.

If we saw God’s plan for our rectification on a graph sloped in an upward direction we could put at the lower left hand corner the Blood of Calvary and then next our redemption or forgiveness of sins. Next advancing toward the right and upward in our call we continue in our rectification by encountering our personal cross. This aspect of our rectification deals with our consecration and our extraction from everything connected to Old Adam or from everything that is NOT Christ.

The next step in our rectification is coming into a life union with the Spirit of Christ. This is essential if we are going to manifest His Life and His character. It is out of this Vine-branch union that we begin to function in obedience and faith and to live wholly for the Lord.

Shallow Christianity has produced very little for the Kingdom because of the lack of living and ministering out of His life. Rather, ministry has been too much out of the intellect and from Bible school preparation than by functioning out of His life. For example, where did Paul set up his Bible School training camps? Where did Timothy and the others receive their training? In the next dimension God, Himself, will teach us by the inner anointing upon the INNER LIFE.

1 John 2: 27] And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

Because Christianity has been so shallow, most are yet to even discover the outward anointing, including too many “ministers.” It seems that as we travel around that there is an epidemic of shallowness from church to church.

The simple truth about being in Adam or being in Christ is still a mystery in many places. The “exchange” of life source in true Christianity has been another mystery. All these simple truths are basic beginning “experiences” and not just doctrines. The sad fact is that many of these basic truths are not even doctrines that are being taught. How will anyone come to maturity if their life source is still Adam.

Rom 6: 4] Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection

Until there is a experiential severance from the life source of Adam, there can never be an experiential change in life source to that of Christ. For example; If we have experienced a union in death with Christ, certainly, we shall then experience a Union in Life with Christ.

However, a genuine union in death must precede our genuine resurrection into Life. Why would this still be a mystery to thousands of Christians? We might ask; Can there really be any real Christianity IF there has been no “exchange of life?”

Another mystery that has plagued the church is the difference between the blood of the cross and the cross itself. It is strange that after so many years that these two different things should still contain such mystery and ignorance.

These thing and many others are just “basic training” for “Going on to Employment.”

We have generally focused upon what we RECEIVE from the blood and the cross rather than see what these things have provided for God and His eternal purpose. Until the church is raised up experientially and seated with Christ in that heavenly dimension, we will just continue to see everything as it relates to us. This has been the “self-center” from which much preaching is understood. Until the church turns to a purely “God center” we will not see from God’s eternal viewpoint.

Many churches are still focusing their message upon the first “crisis” experience of forgiveness of sins and that first experience has dominated their message, Thank God for forgiveness of sins, but we all need that crisis experience and then begin to run the race to qualify for our place in His eternal employment, in His Kingdom Government.

Another basic truth that is still a mystery is our need for cleansing AFTER our sins are forgiven. Also, the method of cleansing has remained a mystery in many fellowships. Some are trusting the blood to do what ONLY our death to Adam can do. After that, we discover there is all the corrupt thoughts and carnal ambitions along with the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The cleansing of the “heart” that is preached so fervently is not even scriptural. God ONLY intends to “take away the heart of stone” and replace it with a new heart of flesh. He has no intention of cleansing the old heart. This is just basic New Covenant provision.

This is sometimes confused with “cleansing of the heart from an evil conscience.” Since the conscience comes alive at baptism, that cleansing from a corrupt conscience is directed to the new heart and its defilement.

Keeping the conscience clean and pure is another mystery in many places. Because even the very basic things have been ignored, the shallowness in the church remains, and ignorance reigns. Preaching the truth of the Gospel of the Kingdom will correct much of this error and enlighten those who are ignorant. Since the gospel of the Kingdom is such a radical departure from the impotent gospel that is being preached, many are fearful of preaching this truth IF they see it. Why? Because it involves the personal cross!