Pt. 3 - First Fulfilled in a Person

Just to start out with a scriptural focus, we’re in Hebrews 9 and 10. In my opinion, one of the most significant statements of the whole Bible is in Hebrews 10:7-10. And it is summed up in verse 9. "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." This statement brings over an Old Testament prophecy into a New Covenant fulfillment. It sums up the whole doctrine of "The coming of The Lord." Any time I open my Bible and share with others I realize that I am opening myself for rebuttal, and I always take very seriously and think through very carefully what I say. I have no problem with people disagreeing. What I do have a problem with is if any one could FROM THE SCRIPTURE refute what I say, and prove it to be wrong. See, when Jesus spoke during the 3 ½ years of His confirming the Covenant, very few, if any of the hierarchy of the theologians of the day received what He said, but NONE of them could refute Him. None of them could prove Him wrong. They could accuse Him and blaspheme Him, but when they actually faced Him in the scriptures, they were the ones who finally were brought to nothing, and just had to be quiet!

So when I make this statement, it’s a considered statement: that here is one of the most significant statements made in the Bible, because it does bring so much of Old Covenant comprehension, understanding to its fulfillment - IN CHRIST. And that’s really what the whole book of Hebrews is about. It is about showing the Old Covenant to have been fulfilled in the PERSON OF CHRIST. That’s what the writer of Hebrews painstakingly sets out to do. Unfortunately most believers never get the message of the first two verses of this letter! And that’s unfortunate that they don’t because of the importance of this letter. So now we’re just going to deal with some of that fulfillment - coming from the First order of things, the First Covenant; to the Second - in Christ. But the reality with which we’ll deal is NOT that we in Christianity are just coming from the First to the Second, as though the Second is just another First. But rather, we are coming from the First to The Person in Whom The First is FULFILLED, to The Person who constitutes the very substance of The Second.

Now that’s an important thing. Most of the "Church world" has little or no comprehension in the first place of what the First Covenant and Second Covenant is. And in the second place, they have a very small comprehension of moving from one to the other and how that is done, how that is done in our hearts, and how that is established. How it WAS done, and how it IS done. And thirdly, most of the Church world, and I think this is the most detrimental, seems to believe that the Second Covenant is just another Covenant than the First, but very much along the same order of the First. For instance, most Christians say, ‘Oh, Old Testament - New Testament.’ And they say the Old Testament is the Old Covenant, and the New Testament is the New Covenant. But the Old Covenant can be read; the New Covenant must be REVEALED. The Old Covenant was written in stone, and on parchment; it was spoken by the mouth of prophets, angels and messengers. But the New Covenant is revealed in the Person of The Son. That is the first sentence in the book of Hebrews! And it is tremendously disturbing to me that not a handful of the religious world comprehends that first sentence of this letter.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners..." Which means this way and that way, and this time and that time. "...spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets..." And we should put a big circle around ‘IN TIME PAST", because we’re going to be talking about "times" now. TIME PAST - just relate that to the First order. "...hath in these last days..." Now that’s a poor translation. The better translation, the Interlinear translation of the Greek would read: "hath AT THE END of those days..."And it’s those days that we are talking about. See, here preachers want to see "time past" and "last days" and they want to stretch those last days until now. They want to preach their "last days" sermons. But there’s no ground for that in the scripture. "Hath at the end of THOSE days..." Those are the days being talked about here. He is comparing "those days" to the reality of Christ, he is comparing the First Covenant to the Second, and I don’t care where you go in the Bible, you are going to find that comparison.

Now, we have defined "First" and "Second". First and Second is the Divine Order of God. Your Bible is divided into First and Second. I can’t emphasize too much - there is no third! A Third order is perversion! Clear and simple: it is perversion. It is an order created of man. It only exists as an illusion. It is neither natural nor spiritual. Some bad things can be said about this "third order". It affects many areas of our lives. I face the "third order" concept mostly in dealing with Christians concerning a futuristic view of things. It’s like we have the Old Covenant, then we have the New Covenant, and then we’ve got a Covenant "yet to come". That’s a "third order" of things. It’s an illusion, a perversion. We can see from the scripture, and from reason and from spiritual sequences of the scripture that the Bible sets forth First and Second. The Bible also says the First is NOT spiritual; the Second is spiritual. The Bible relates man to both of those orders - Old Man, New Man; First Man, Second Man. The Bible relates tabernacle, priesthood, creation, heaven and earth, and divides. You have a New and Old, First Order and Second Order. Right on through there is that division in the Bible of the First and the Second. And that’s all summed up as the First Covenant and a Second Covenant, because all of those things are part of one or the other Covenant.

In the First we have First Covenant Man, First Covenant Priest, First Covenant Tabernacle, First Covenant Mankind, First Covenant heaven and earth. Those things all bear the image of the First. They are temporal, they are a testimony but not the substance of the witness itself. They are a type and a shadow. They are predictive, they are a prophecy, a promise - all of that. They are how God first communicated Himself to man. That brings us back to verse 1. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners..." communicated in this way. In different ways, different times, He communicated to our fathers. TIME PAST - remember that? Here we have a definition of "time past" in the scripture. You and I can’t say we are sitting here and it’s Saturday morning, so Friday is time past. No - "time past" is not speaking of "day before" or yesterday. It’s speaking of an AGE; it has to be brought into scriptural context. "Time past" is First Covenant. It’s very clear everywhere "time" is mentioned, that is referring to a definite period of time, a definite age. You’ll see it is referring to the First Covenant way and means, First Covenant understanding that was given of God concerning Himself and His intention in relation to man.

So He did that, but at THE END OF THOSE DAYS... And here we find the END of those days. And Christ is that end, and Christ must first be an END before He can be a beginning. There’s no way you can just kind of slide past the end! But we all want to do that. In our nature, whether we understand it or not, we want an improved First Covenant. If you want to relate First Covenant to man - then we want an "improved" man, we want an improved self. We do not want to face the end of ourselves! We do not want to do that. And except we are brought up to tremendous crisis, we won’t do it. You see this in the Apostle Paul and others: tremendous crisis in their lives - whether crisis brought about by Divine intervention, or however it’s brought about. It’s a crisis: it’s like somebody walks up and slaps them in the face and says, Wake up! Crisis.

You see this throughout the Old Covenant: the type and shadow of it. It’s always that way because we don’t want to face the end. One of the most defining scriptures concerning Israel is in 2 Corinthians 3:13. That says, " And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look TO THE END of that which is abolished." The children of Israel could not look to the END, stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. See, how many of us understand that the glory of God is the end of that which is abolished? No, we don’t think that. We never associate the glory of God with THE CROSS. We never associate the glory of God with the First Order coming to an end. What couldn’t they look at? The reflection of God’s glory on the face of Moses! That’s why they put a veil over him. Paul is saying, we are not going to do that! Paul says we are not going to veil the glory of God. We’re not going to put a rag over the face of Jesus! We are going to openly declare Him as being The Glory of God that IS COME, The Glory of God that Israel is looking for. We are going to declare Him as being the end of the Law, the end of the First, the end of the First Man, the end of the First Israel. We are going to declare Him as being the only beginning of the only creation of God - Firstborn from among the dead, only begotten. We are not going to veil this reality as Moses did!

That’s what he is saying here, because Moses put the veil on, and it was just a REFLECTION of the Glory. It wasn’t the TRUE Glory, but they couldn’t look at that. And here we find the mystery of that revealed. Paul says, well, here’s why: "They could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." And he goes on to tell us here it’s the First Covenant, the First Administration, the Administration of Death. The First Covenant is being abolished. Verse 7, " But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth."

So we must understand that the Glory of the Second is THE END of the Glory of the First. It isn’t that the First just gets glorious and becomes more glorious. No, it’s that the Glory of the Second makes the Glory of the First of NO GLORY AT ALL! It’s like we see in Hebrews 10, "He taketh away the First..." He doesn’t just extend its Glory. The First Covenant mentality is "One is Coming"; that’s what Glory says. What was "Glory" to Israel? That’s what filled the temple; it’s what represented God, it’s what represented God in their midst. It was a type and a shadow, but it

represented God. It was the Glory of the First Covenant. It was a Glory of Moses, it was a Glory of the administration of death. And it was glorious!

But it was so far excelled by the Glory of which it itself spoke, that by comparison, it was NOT Glory at all! The glory of which it spoke - once that Glory came, was the end of the First Glory by reason of EXTREME excellence. Paul and all the New Testament writers are saying CHRIST IS THE GLORY THAT WAS TO COME! Because the Glory was always typed in the Old Covenant as an individual, as a man. Ezekiel - Ezekiel saw The Man. He saw Him in the heavens, saw Him above the Throne. That’s in Ezekiel 1, and he concludes that in chapters 40 - 44, and he talks about ‘I saw HIM; the Glory of God entered into the temple and filled it.’ It makes it to be A man, A Person. Paul is saying - THAT PERSON IS COME! That Glory is come!

Now, this will help you to understand Who is and Who is not. We don’t want to run around making judgmental decisions. Listen, I don’t have to judge any of you, or be judgmental. THE CROSS MADE THE JUDGMENT! Now you either obey it or you don’t. How could I add to the judgment of The Cross? I myself am judged there. But we’ve got this idea today that there isn’t any judgment. Forget that! The only reason I don’t judge you is that I know you are already judged, and you’re judged more than I could ever judge you, and I’m judged more than you could ever judge me. I’m judged unto DEATH. You are too! Now, whether we’re obeying that judgment or not; whether we are in violation of judgment is another matter. That’s the reason I don’t judge. Now, we are to become a judgment in the earth! That means we are to live in such a fashion that in the earth we set forth the judgment by which we ourselves have been judged. That judgment is: "I have no life but Christ." So we are to become a judgment in the earth, and when we enter into a situation, we enter in there as a judgment, that none liveth here, but Christ!

We don’t go there to "make judgments": we are a judgment. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any judgment - JUDGMENT IS COME - WITH THE CROSS. The judgment is come in The Person of One. And so we are either going to walk after it or not. I tell many people that here’s what it comes down it: you will either OBEY in your heart, or you won’t. And there’s not one thing or another I can do about it. I can stand with you, I can encourage you; but who could obey for me? Who could obey for you? Who can do that? It’s a matter of obedience. Why? The One to come - CAME - in Divine obedience! "Obedient unto death, even the death of The Cross." Now there is no other nature that God accepts but that nature working in me, that nature working in you. There isn’t any other nature. If you think God accepts my nature - you are wrong! Do you know what God said to "my" nature? THE CROSS! Do you know what God said to "my" condition? At its best - THE CROSS!

You hear it on the radio and the television, and on bumper stickers all the time: The Lord accepts you just as you are. Where in the name of God did that ever come from? If that were so - where’s The Cross? No, He knew man as we were: He knows man. He would not commit Himself to man because He knew the heart of man. He knows man; so He made HIMSELF of no reputation, of low estate, just so He could take on the form of man and go to The Cross with him! Now that’s how He accepted me, and you, as how we were and are - good, bad and indifferent. So why should I start judging among ourselves? None of us are worth a plug nickel! - in that realm, in that First Order of things. Everyone of us are reckoned dead in Christ. That’s how He accepted us! Because the only Spirit, the only nature, the only character He can accept is that of HIS SON! That’s what the Second is! That’s what Salvation is! It’s not you and I trying to be better, or trying to be worse. It’s you and I coming to realize, by the judgment of The Cross - I have no life here. Where? In the Second! If you want to associate with the Second - just admit it! "I have no life here!" There’s one place where I have no life, BUT CHRIST. That’s the Second!

That’s the Second Order, that’s the Spiritual Order. And everything else is the First. If it is not the Second, then it’s the First. And that ought to be so clear that a baby could understand it because there aren’t any gray areas between the two; there isn’t any third. There’s First and Second. The whole plan of God is to bring us from the one to the other, and He does it through THE CROSS. He does not have us in the Second getting us ready for the third, because isn’t any third! First Covenant mentality says, "He’s coming - One is to come"; The Glory, The Glory! Paul says we’re going to declare to you plainly: THE GLORY HAS COME! You read that in 2 Corinthians 3: The Glory has come! We are declaring it to you plainly, not as Moses who put a veil so that Israel could not look stedfastly to the end. And notice it says "the end" and not "the beginning." Because you’ll never see the beginning; you’ll never know the beginning until you face the end. That is the order of His appearing. That’s what we’re talking about : The Time and Order of His Appearing. And the order is: first the end; and then, the beginning.

We can clearly see that in the type in the Tabernacle. Now, I am not smart, but on the basis of this I will sit with any so called Bible scholars, any theologian who will reason in the scripture with me concerning First and Second. There simply is no other order in the Word of God: it does not exist! I have spent three years trying to find any other order, and what has happened is I have been convinced and reinforced concerning First and Second more than ever before. And you have to associate everything with that order - First and Second: First man, Second man; First creation, second creation. You can call it "old" and "new" if you want because the Bible related old and new to it, but it is actually First and Second. And the Hebrews writer makes that very, very clear.

So - First and Second Glory. I have said that everything of the First finds its summation in the Second, but I’ve also said that the Second is a PERSON - not just another form of the First. In other words, I mean we do not have prophecies in the First, and then just better prophecies in the Second. In the Second we have the fulfillment of the prophecies of the First. We do not have promises in the First, and then better promises in the Second. The Second IS the better promise! The Second is the fulfillment of the First. The promises of the First were given to the Seed. CHRIST IS THE SEED! Paul says that in Galatians: "Unto Abraham and his seed were the promises made. Not to seeds, as of many, but as of one. And unto thy Seed, which IS CHRIST." Then he goes on to say, Now if ye be Christ’s (possessively, summed up in Him) then the promises are to you as well. Not for some distant future: those promises are fulfilled in you NOW!

Yes, because look in 1 Corinthians 1:17, "When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay?" In other words, an unstableness of mind - yes and no. "But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea." And today that’s all I hear from preachers - yea and nay. ‘Well, some of them are fulfilled, but some of them are not! Well, He’s come, but then He’s not! Well, it may be, but I don’t know for sure. Well, you just have to wait until you get to "glory-land" for that. I mean, we’ll understand it "by and by."’ That’s yea and nay, and you just want to say: Hey, which is it - yea or no? And this order here is just what the Jews were asking. And the Apostles had the tremendous task of showing to the Jews of their day, and obviously the message got across to a few of them, because that’s what constituted the first Church. Their task was to show that IN HIM it’s all YEA - everyone of your prophets is fulfilled IN HIM; everything they ever said is fulfilled IN HIM. It isn’t "coming"; it’s IN HIM NOW!! That’s the only place you’ll ever realize it in its true significance. Every type and shadow that you have - in the Tabernacle, whatever - has been answered IN HIM! He has provided IN HIMSELF that answer, that reality, that relationship that your Tabernacle and all of its facets spoke of. It’s IN HIM! All the promises of God - all of them: the Law, the prophets, the psalms - all the promises of God. " For all the promises of God IN HIM are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us."

I have no idea how people can read that, and then come out with some dumb statement that this means He’ll "keep the promise." No it doesn’t! It means the promises are FULFILLED IN HIM. It means that everything that God said to Abraham had its fulfillment in Christ. It means that everything that God said to Moses had its fulfillment in Christ: with regard to the land, with regard to possessions, with regard to inheritance - everything! It means everything the psalmists said: because everything that David said was in relation to Israel’s relationship with God. All the promises were related to Israel and their relationship to God. Paul says - here it is: you’ll find it IN HIM. It doesn’t go beyond Him. There’s not a city waiting for you round the corner. Here, come to realize it IN HIM. And then - live as the city, live in that relationship. Ye are the Jerusalem of God! Unto you the promises are made. They are in Him. We did not tell you yes and no; we declare... and then Paul goes on and builds up in this letter. Then he says we use great plainness of speech. Not as Moses put a veil over his face. We’re not going to hide this from you. We are going to clearly set forth before you the end - and the beginning. And when the First is ended, only ONE remains: The One of Whom the First spoke. And in Him you’re going to have to find everything of Spiritual Life.

That’s what he’s declaring, and here he’s using that as to the Glory, and he goes on. 2 Corinthians 3:13, " And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ." What is that veil? Let’s look at that veil historically in the Tabernacle. The veil was what separated the First and the Second sanctuaries. (See Hebrews 9:1-8) Hebrews 9 says there was one Tabernacle, but inside was represented two tabernacles: the First one and the Second. And it said the Priest went into the First one daily, but into the Second one only the High Priest went one time a year, and only then by the blood, for his own sins and for the sins of others could he do that. And he couldn’t remain there; he could just go in there. And verse 8 says the Holy Spirit was saying something. And the Holy Spirit was saying that while this whole First Order of things remain, while this First Tabernacle remains, the way into the Second is not made manifest. He’s getting them ready to say in the next chapter: Therefore when he comes, He taketh away the First, that He may establish the Second. So when the First is gone, only the Second remains.

Now that was a testimony that was established in the First Tabernacle itself because in the First Tabernacle itself was a testimony of these two Covenants - the First and the Second. The lampstand had a glory - but it burned out! It had to be relit. But the Ark of the Covenant had a glory - and that was the Glory of God! That was a type and a shadow. Yes, and Christ overshadowed the whole thing, but my point is the testimony was in that First Tabernacle. And it was separated by a veil. So we have in that First Tabernacle the old heaven and the old earth. The old earth is that First sanctuary; the old heaven, which was a type of heaven is that Second one. Old heaven and old earth - separated by a veil. Signifying that as long as this Tabernacle that has the two divided sections in it remains, these two sections are going to remain DIVIDED. Because in that First one, there is this First and Second, but it’s divided. And you can’t freely go from one to the other. Only the High Priest could do that. So as long as you have the First Tabernacle, which represents the First Covenant, the First Order, you are going to have heaven and earth SEPARATED. And that is the concept of the old heaven and the old earth.

But he’s about to introduce them to a NEW heaven and a NEW earth where they are NOT separated - they are fulfilled IN CHRIST! Where He’s joined to His Body, where the Body is joined to Christ, where heaven and earth are one - in Him, in Newness of Life. A NEW heaven and a NEW earth. So he goes on and says He is entered into heaven itself, not the type. But what is the veil? The scripture uses the term, "the vail of his flesh". The veil is humanity itself. If you want to call it your flesh, okay: its humanity itself because what did Christ take out of the way at The Cross? Ephesians 2:14-18: what did He take away? He took away the veil of flesh, He took away the Jew and Gentile - in the body of His Cross, bringing forth One New Man who is at peace with God. So the veil that He took out of the way is humanity itself. When He died upon The Cross, what part of the Tabernacle was immediately affected? The veil was rent! Now, the whole Tabernacle was going to be torn down... that was predicted by Christ. But with The Cross, that partition, that dividing was done away.

And that’s exactly what he says: "Which vail is done away IN CHRIST." In the New Tabernacle, in Christ, there isn’t anything dividing heaven from earth! The two have become one! And that goes back to the prayer of Jesus when he said: Here’s the way you really ought to pray. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Where? In earth, as it is in heaven. What’s He talking about? The two coming together! The one ruling upon the other. Dispensationalists can’t see that as being IN CHRIST, so they have to set up a false "Third Image Kingdom" way down the line and keep kicking it out in front of you. They have to - because it’s an illusion in the first place! The reality of it is NOW - IN CHRIST! And you are either going to walk in obedience to it, or you are not. Because some big thunderbolt is not going to fall out of heaven, hit you between the eyes, and make you do anything! The thunderbolt has already come! It has come AT THE CROSS! The veil is already done away! Now we either obey and find ourselves walking in the Second, the reality - or we don’t.

But here’s the point: if you’re not walking in the reality of the Second, then you are not somewhere in "no-man’s land", because the veil IS done away in Christ. And that now has to be a work of The Spirit in our hearts.

Look at this: 2 Corinthians 3:15, " But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." When IT... what? THE HEART! That’s what happened to many Jews of that day, and that’s what must happen to each of us. See, today people think that "accepting Christ" is the same as accepting Christianity. It’s not, but they think it is. They go to their so-called "churches", and sit on their pews, and they are a Christian. They have accepted the teachings of Christianity, they have accepted the religion. In their heart they have said, Yes, Jesus is Who He said He was...blah, blah, blah... The whole question is: have you ever come to the judgment of The Cross? The whole question is: have you really been "born again"? The question is not whether you’ve finally agreed with Christianity and become a "Christian". That’s not the question... it won’t even work that way!

Yet I’m afraid today that many who call themselves Christians come just that way. And when you start talking to them about The Cross, it’s an alien thing to them. If you start talking to them about the veil, it’s an alien thing to them. And I’m not saying that it’s alien just because they are untaught in the scriptures. It’s alien in nature, in character, because they’ve been allowed to come in under the concept that Christianity is just a much improved First Order. It’s kind of like they think that the Second Covenant is a sequel to the First. It isn’t, it’s an altogether other book, and it isn’t a sequel at all. And that’s what Paul is trying to say. He’s saying, Look, it’s not just a greater glory: it’s so great, it makes the other as no glory at all, and brings it to its end.

"Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." What shall be taken away? Because it’s done away in Christ, so when you turn to see Him, you don’t see a veil. Therefore the veil is taken away, the illusion of it is gone. The Second Covenant is realized: the Glory of God is in me! CHRIST IS IN ME! I AM IN HIM! The veil is done! I HAVE NO LIFE BUT CHRIST! The veil is gone! What is the veil? Humanity - the Jew, the Gentile; and you realize it is not I: it is Christ Who liveth in me! And I live by Him - NOT as a Jew, NOT as a Gentile; as a New Man, a New Creation, a New Tabernacle of God, as a New heaven and a New earth. He - The Heaven, has come into His earth, and made His earth One with Himself! And that is according to the promises given to Abraham.

And for us it’s a matter of obedience of our heart, for you can obey or not. It’s just a shame that Christianity has become just an improved First Order of things - looking for Jesus to come "one day". And I’m telling you - here’s the mentality: one says "He’s coming." The other says: "HE IS COME!" Not, "He is coming" - HE IS COME! The Second Order mentality is: CHRIST IS COME! CHRIST IS MY LIFE! I am in Him, He is in me, we are in Him, He is in His Body - HE IS COME! But only The Spirit of God can reveal that, and that’s what the scriptures go on and say. Dispensationalists mistake that for some kind of future event; when it is actually just declaring that this is a work of The Spirit. Christ being revealed - Christ coming - Christ appearing - it’s a work of The Spirit! But where is He always coming? Where is He always appearing? It’s always in His Heaven, it’s always coming into His earth. Don’t we understand that there is a NEW Heaven and a NEW earth? That there is a NEW Creation? That we have actually come from the one to the other by THE CROSS.

Let me tell you something: there is this idea that the "natural" creation has something to do with this. It doesn’t! People think that the natural creation is synonymous with the old heaven and the old earth. The old heaven and the old earth is an administrative order: the administration of death, the Law, the First Covenant - an administrative order: old heaven, old earth. It is seen in the Tabernacle - First and Second. First is old, Second is new. It is seen there; an administrative order. The New heaven and the New earth is an administrative order, but it’s the administration of The Spirit. We have come from the one to the other. We have too, but you see, 2,000 years ago when this was being written, they had literally come from the "literal" First. They were Jews! They weren’t Gentiles - they were Jews. So this really was meaningful to them, more so than it is to most believers today because most believers today haven’t been taught enough to know what is going on! But these people actually came from the administration of the Law to the administration of The Spirit. They had never walked that way their entire lives, and nobody else has either! But the point is - they had walked under the Law.

The possibility is that the day before they were offering sacrifices at the Temple gate! And now, because of the witness of The Spirit and the Word of the Apostles, they received CHRIST as that sacrifice - as THE END of that whole order of things; not only in the natural, but in their hearts. WHAM! These are the ones he is writing to at this particular time. Certainly it is to you and I, but it was written to this kind of a people, this kind of a mentality. And I think that Christians today fail to realize that; they don’t appreciate it. And here is the mistake they make because of that. So, verse 16, " Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that spirit..." So he clearly says that the administrator of this thing is The Lord. "...the Lord is that spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." That is, you are not bound to the Old Covenant Law. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass..." Open face means an unveiled face. The veil is taken off our face. Now chapter 4 says in verse 6, " For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in OUR HEARTS to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Now, back to verse 18, "But we all with open face..." The face is not veiled. The veil is taken off of our face when we are face to face with the glory of God. Moses couldn’t do that. The old administration couldn’t do that. That’s what the New administration is about. We do have approach to The Spirit: HE IS IN US! We can know Him: HE IS OUR LIFE! We can behold Him face to face: the soul and The Spirit comes face to face - the veil is done away! This is the work of The Spirit - yes, it goes on to say that. "...beholding as in a glass..." The word "glass" there is "marah" or vision. It is a spiritual revealing. Beholding as in a vision. This is not the same word as "dreaming vision", but as a view given of God, an understanding given of God - clear glass.

He has used this same analogy in chapter 13 of his previous letter to the Corinthians where he says until "the perfect" has come it is like looking through a glass darkly. And he uses that as coming from a child to a man. He’s back on that same reference, but here he’s looking into this glass, but it’s not in darkness of the Old Covenant or in parts. No, no, but "the glory of The Lord, and are changed into that same image, from glory to glory." Now here’s what people think who don’t understand the scriptures. They think that there is an ever changing glory: that we are going from glory, to glory, to glory. No - there’s just TWO glories. We are brought here from the glory of the old, to the glory of the New. There’s two glories being talked about here. That’s why we read these verses: the glory of the one, the glory of the other. And so IN THE FACE OF JESUS we come from the glory to glory: we come from the glory of the First to the glory of the Second. And the original says, "And this is the work of The Spirit." This says, "even as by the Spirit of The Lord." The work of The Spirit in you is to bring you from the one to the other in the face of Jesus Christ. So I say again: First Covenant mentality is, ‘Well, He’s coming.’ But the Second Covenant mentality is ‘HE IS COME’, because until you see Him you do not know the Second Covenant.

And that’s where we were in Hebrews 1. "Hath at the end of those days, spoken IN SON." Everything that He has said in types and shadows, divers time, different ways, He has summed up, perfected and spoken IN SON. So now the writer of Hebrews is saying there’s no need for us to talk about those things - just THE SON! So we don’t need to preach heaven and earth - we preach HIM! We don’t need to preach Tabernacle - just HIM! But people continue today and go back in the Old Covenant writings, which are the promises and prophecies of God, and they preach these things as things, that "one day" is either going to happen or materialize. And they just ignore the fact that all of these things were speaking of HIM in His relationship with a people. And that it is IN HIM that we find these things. Look at Ephesians 1. It’s amazing that Paul says the same thing in every letter. And that’s the reason we can go from letter to letter and tie it all together. Ephesians 1:9,10, " Having made known unto us the mystery of his will..." Well, the mystery of His will is the New Covenant. And the mystery says that He’s coming, but it pictures Him as a Suffering Servant and a Ruling King. And the mystery was - how can He be both? And it was such a mystery that the Jews couldn’t understand it, and when Jesus set it before them and said, ‘I must die’, then they said ‘You are not our Messiah!’ Because they missed the mystery. The mystery was that ‘Except I die, you can not live in My Kingdom. I don’t have to die for Me to be a King, but except I die, you can’t come from the one to the other.’

And so He came to do the whole thing for those who rejected Him. They wanted Him as a ruling King, but He said, ‘See, I can’t set up a Kingdom among you. I didn’t come to set one up. My Kingdom is not of this earth; it’s from above. I didn’t come to build you another kingdom like Solomon did that will come to an end, but to bring you into an Eternal Kingdom to which there is no end. This is The Covenant, this is The Kingdom of which all your prophets spoke - an Eternal, Everlasting One.’ And the mystery of it is - you must die to enter. And it’s THE DEATH OF THE CROSS - not this natural death. I must die. And His death you know was much more than just something natural. His soul was separated from The Almighty God. He bore the wrath. But the Jews couldn’t see Him as their end. And because of the lack of the gospel that is being presented today to God’s people, God’s people can’t see Him as that end either. NO, they don’t want to hear that I’ve got to die before I enter. Are you telling me that Salvation just doesn’t make ME better? We think God wants our best: what else is there to give Him?

But this is exactly what Jesus told the Jews. He said that’s exactly what I’m telling you. ‘I come to lead The Way. I’m the forerunner. You can not now come where I’m going, but you will come - because He was going to The Cross. Then He told His disciples in a totally different setting, ‘That’s alright, don’t worry. Let the peace of God be in your hearts, because if I go away (that was in His death), I will come again.’ And He did that in His resurrection. ‘And I will receive you unto Myself, that where I am, you may be also.’ That’s exactly what He did! And even commentators like Matthew Henry will tell you that this is NOT a location described there, but a RELATIONSHIP. "Where I am" is not a location, but a relationship. Any good Bible scholar will tell you that. We have been received into a relationship! That’s what the Second so-called "coming" is all about! It’s His coming as related to the Second, the Second Order of thing, the Second Coming. There is not a third one! Here He is Ever Coming, here He is Ever Present! To only who will turn to see Him. It’s just that you and I won’t do it. We won’t turn to see Him, because we know that the first thing we’re going to see when we turn to see Him is OUR END, and we don’t want to see it! So, we just don’t turn.

We just won’t turn. So we either make what we believe just a bunch of words and a teaching; but never a reality. Or like most Christians we believe He hasn’t come yet. It’s just kind of a "waiting game". And there are those who will agree by the volume of the scriptures that this has to be true; but they still won’t look to see Him. They will accept the truth of the THEOLOGY of it, but they won’t turn their heart to see Him; because immediately when you see Him, you see the END of one, and the BEGINNING of the other. That’s what He is: you can’t see anything else. He is the End, and the Beginning. In that order: First and Second. And so it’s not that you are seeing the Lord and then, in addition you see that He is the end of this or that. No, when you see Him, you see the end. HE IS THE END YOU SEE, and He is the beginning. But the Divine order of things, and the order in which The Holy Spirit must reveal Him, because it is the order in which He performed the thing is: First - the End, Second - the Beginning. That’s the realization that comes into you. That’s what Paul has been saying here.

But now in Ephesians 1:9, "Having made know unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times..." Now I’m amazed when I hear preachers speak of that as some FUTURE dispensation. Not only was this written 2,000 years ago to believers that were alive in Christ Jesus then, at that time on the earth walking around; so it doesn’t even make sense that you would write to them about something that in 2,000 years still hasn’t happened. That doesn’t even make sense! But it makes less sense when you do understand that "the dispensation of the fulness of times" is the same dispensation that Paul is talking about in his Corinthian letter - the dispensation of The Spirit over against the dispensation of death. Because the word "dispensation" is translated here in the Greek as "administration". So in 2 Corinthians 3 it is the administration of death, and the administration of The Spirit: the glory of that administration, and the glory of the second administration. Now here in Ephesians he is saying the same thing: he’s not off into another gospel. So, "the administration of the fulness of times..." and that is exactly the way it is translated. The word "dispensation" here has nothing to do with linear time, is not described by time element at all, but rather, by the occupants thereof. Therefore, the word "administration", because where you have administration... administration of what? Over whom? It’s occupants. For instance, "The Bush administration". That’s not something written on a apiece of paper; it’s PEOPLE. The Spirit administration.

So, "That in the administration of the fulness of times..." That’s this administration of the Second Covenant. "He might..." do what? "Gather together in one, all things in Christ." Certainly! And here - "all things"; all things of the Old Covenant. Where else are you going to go to get your "all things"? You just have a First Covenant and a Second Covenant. All things: all things written, all things spoken, all things testified of - ALL THINGS! Not one jot, not one tittle is left out. Not one promise, not one prophecy - all things. The Holy Spirit, the administration of the Second is for that purpose. It is to gather up in your heart, in you, in Christ - ALL THINGS, and show them to be fulfilled in Christ, gathered into Him, whether in heaven or in earth - He gathers it into Him, and shows all things. "Gathers together in one all things, in heaven and earth, even IN CHRIST." What is He doing? Revealing the mystery of His will; showing what He purposed from the beginning; that everything that He would speak of in a First, He would have IN THE PERSON OF HIS SECOND. He knew that from the beginning, and so when He spoke of it in the First, He spoke of it in those terms. Though it was hidden in signs and types and shadows, still it is clear - clear enough that they were looking for One to come.

But what they couldn’t understand of the mystery was HOW God would do it. They never expected that The One to come would come TO DIE, and come forth IN RESURRECTION. They thought He’d just come and beat all their enemies. He did! He defeated all enemies! He conquered death! He came forth in the power of The Resurrection, and there is His Kingdom! And He doesn’t have to "come back" to that Kingdom: He is the center of it! He’s the substance of it! It exists in Him! He doesn’t have to "come back" to it; HE NEVER DID LEAVE IT! What He left was the First order, He returned in The Second. He is the fulness of it. There is no where in the scripture that says anything other than that. Now, there’s no need to argue about that, but just look in the scripture. Where does it say that He has abandoned The Second, that He has left The Second? And that He’s going to return to it "one day"? When you persist and say that, what you do is destroy the whole concept of The Second. You have made The Cross, and that work null and void! You have made the Christian Church no better than First Covenant Israel. You are still looking for "One to come". You are still looking for unfulfilled promises, you are still looking for unfulfilled prophecies. You are living in an illusion! You have departed from The Truth. You’ve put the veil over your face; you are saying the glory of God will come "one day"; but you refuse to look to the Glory now and begin to bear His image. Because to do so would bring this to its absolute end, bring it to its destruction.

Where would it end if you said it’s already ended? It has ended in the economy of God; yes, it has ended. Where will it end now? In me, in my heart! That’s what Paul said. He said although this thing is done, yet the veil remains upon OUR HEARTS. But when those hearts turn - the veil is done away! Paul said it will take place in your heart. It will take place in you - YOU will be changed from glory to glory. He’s already done it! He’s already made the change. He came and identified with the one glory and brought it to death, and come forth as The Person of the other glory. He has already done that, and He isn’t going to do it any more! But that YOU may come... because the whole thing was that WE may come.

So that is the mentality of those two Covenants. There is so much involved in the First Covenant; there’s ONLY ONE involved in The Second! And that’s because it took all of that to speak of Him! My Word! It took all of that to speak of Him, and yet He fulfills it all, and brings us into that, so that we become His City, His Tabernacle. We get an idea that these promises of God all revolved around us. No - they all revolved around The Seed, The One to Whom The Promise is made. We are joint heirs with Him in HIS promises. So again, the Dispensationalists are telling you that God hasn’t fulfilled His promises to His Seed yet. And if that’s true - where is our inheritance? Heir ... joint heirs with Christ? Of what? It’s like a plague, like a scourge upon the land. I’m sorry that it’s gotten this way in the church, but I’m sorry that the theory of evolution has taken over the school system too. I’m sorry that the theory of Dispensationalists has taken over the Church structure.

But The Truth remains The Truth, The Spirit remains The Spirit; and when the heart turns, the veil is taken away! And I’m telling you, you will never change that system... but YOUR heart. I have no hopes of ever changing the system, but I know that there are people that are captive to the system who have a heart to see Him, and I hope that they hear The Truth and would turn. Immediately - what happens? Well, they just come right out of The First and into the reality of The Second. And that’s what it should have been in the first place: coming out of The First and into The Second. Of course there’s a great crisis involved there, which is The Cross. Yes, because the change is different: it’s not just intellectual. It is actually inward. There is actually a change that takes place, not just an intellectual acceptance. So there is a crisis. It is The Cross, and that’s what Paul said. He said we refuse to lie to you, we refuse to veil this, we will not do it! We will speak clearly, we will speak plainly to you concerning this matter.

So, the order of His appearing. And it is HIS appearing, because the First and Second Covenants are not just two theological issues. The First Covenant is the testimony of ONE TO COME: The Testimony of Christ. The Second Covenant is THE PERSON and Substance of Christ Himself. So His appearing is necessary to both - that He appears. And that takes us back to Hebrews 9 and 10: that He has appeared - once in the end of the First He hath appeared. And Hebrews 9:28 says, "And to those who look for Him, shall He appear the second, without sin, unto Salvation." In the First - He appeared. Yes, He appeared in relation to sin. He certainly did! But in the Second He doesn’t. He had a body PREPARED for Him in the First. He has a Body GIVEN to Him in the Second. "To every seed God giveth his own body." That Seed fell into the ground and died, and came forth in the Resurrection. Unto that Seed God giveth His own body. In fact Paul says in Corinthians God has placed every member of His own choosing into that Body. God giveth His Seed His own Body. That Body is His Church, that Body is you! You are The Body of the Second Order - not you as male or female: you as a New Creature in Christ! Dispensationalists want Him to come back into the Second in the body of the First, but that is NOT going to happen!

We must understand that would violate God’s order. " A body hast Thou prepared for Me." A sacrificial body - yes. That’s it! That cute little baby born in that manger is a SACRIFICE! They just brought Him into Simeon, and Anna was there too, and Simeon and Anna looked at Him and said..."The Sacrifice has come!" They spoke there both of a Suffering Servant and a Ruling King, but they said - THIS IS HIM! Simeon said, "Lord, I can die now. I’ve seen your Salvation!" Yes, He looked at that little bitty baby. What did God see when He looked at that little bitty baby? He saw His Son, Who had become of no reputation, He took upon Him the form of a servant. A body prepared for Him - to die. Now, The Body of that Son that pleases God is THE BODY OF THE RESURRECTION, because this is the Body that all of the prophecies are talking about. This is the Temple that all the prophecies are talking about. This is The Temple that the whole Tabernacle of Moses pointed to - The One that Christ lives in, rules in, reigns in!

Here in the First He appears once in the end. Here in the Second He appears as the beginning, as the fulness. To who? TO THOSE WHO LOOK FOR HIM! Not look for Him "to one day come"; look for Him WHO IS COME. To those who turn...the turning of the heart, to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God!

Pt. 4 - The Time of His Appearing

We’ll continue in our search on The Time and Order of His Appearing. I want to deal now with this "time" - the TIME of His Appearing. There seems to be in "religious" circles a real controversy: among theologians a real controversy with regard to the Time of His Appearing. In 1 Peter 1:10, Peter is saying, " Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you; Searching what, or what manner of TIME the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are NOW reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into." And this word "angels" here is translated in the Greek as "messengers": these prophets, rather than winged, spiritual beings. Peter said, signifying what MANNER OF TIME the Spirit of Christ, which was in them did signify. And that it was revealed that not to themselves, but unto US did they prophesy these things. And he says it is these very things that they prophesied that has been ministered to you by them who minister to you, and in fact they are ministering unto you the very things that these messengers desired to look into, but could not! So it makes sense to me that in the context of these verses that the word "angels" is translated "messengers", meaning the messengers of The Old Covenant, and not angelic beings.

My point here: in dealing with the Time of His Appearing is that here we are in the Second Covenant, in the realization of Christ. And every believer ought to agree with that whether they understand it or not, and we are still in a quandary over time. We are still searching "what manner of time" these things should be. The Old Covenant prophets had that problem! The only question of time should be, and is connected with the First Covenant. See, they knew what God said; they just didn’t know WHEN He was going to do it! They knew One had to come: they didn’t know WHEN He was going to come! For God’s sake - that sounds like what The Church is preaching today! Does that make any sense? That here we are in the New Covenant, and still don’t know anything about time; still "time" is the main question. Does that make any sense to you? It shouldn’t make sense to you; it shouldn’t be a question. And if we would read our Bibles, Peter answered that question then. He said they were seeking "what manner of time" - the time that these things should occur, that they prophesied. For they knew that they didn’t prophesy unto themselves, concerning their own time; but a time that was yet to come - to us, to others.

And let’s look at something else here. What is it we are talking about here? Verse 9 says, "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." And in this study we should throw a spotlight on this word "end". And we would irrefutably, without reason of doubt come to find in the scripture, and hopefully in our hearts by The Spirit, that CHRIST IS THE END OF ALL THINGS! End of faith - Christ! End of the law for righteousness - Christ! End of Old Covenant world - Christ! End of time, fulness of time - Christ! HE IS THE ONLY END EVER PROJECTED BY THE SCRIPTURE! "Would not stedfastly look unto the end of that which was abolished." - Christ! The only end ever projected by the scripture is Christ. The word "end" means "the summation of, finding its purpose in, coming to its ultimate goal"; not simply cessation, but fulfillment. Christ is that, He is that. Everything comes to Him to find that.

So what are we talking about here? SALVATION. The scripture deals with time in reference to Salvation. If the time hasn’t come, then our Salvation hasn’t come. If our Salvation has come, then the time has come. Because with regard to time, Salvation was the subject in the Old Covenant. They knew there was a Salvation to come. We read that in verse 11. See, always in the Old Covenant, when it was a true Spirit of prophecy, not only was Christ presented as a Suffering Servant, but as a Ruling King - always! Not only was a destruction prophesied, but an immediate restoration - always! Look at Isaiah, look at Jeremiah. The mystery was - WHEN? And the answer to that was found in CHRIST CRUCIFIED. There was the destruction, and there was the immediate restoration. There was the suffering, and there was the glory that came forth. The problem, Peter said was TIME - the prophets didn’t know the time. They knew that it wasn’t in their own time: "To whom it was revealed that NOT unto themselves, but unto US did they minister these things." What things? These prophesies concerning this Salvation. "Which are NOW reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you..." And here I’ll paraphrase: making known unto you, declaring unto you the things that those prophets desired to look into - but could not.

Speaking plainly to you: that THE TIME IS COME: that the time of which the prophets spoke is NOW. And yet here we are today, in the religious, Church world struggling again with the issue of TIME. When is He going to come? When is this going to happen? When is "that day" going to be? And it has ALREADY COME!! "That day" spoken of by the prophets is fulfilled in THE DAY HIMSELF, and "the day" is NOW! And you are children of The Day, that you might walk in the light of The Day. And yet I’m sure that throughout the world today there are sermons preached on "that day" as though it has not yet come: that "that day" had not been brought to its substance in Christ, but has been applied to events, happenings, and speculations - everything but Salvation. But clearly in the scripture "The Day" that is spoken of by every prophet, whether it is called "the Day of the Lord", "the Day of His coming", "the Day of His wrath", "That Day..." over and over again; regardless of the preposition attached to it, it is THE DAY OF SALVATION that is being spoken of. And the New Covenant writers declare NOW IS... NOW is the Day of Salvation. It is come! The day of which the prophets spoke, although they did not know the time - is come!

I don’t know when believers, and let alone ministers and theologians are going to see the Bible as One Book, rather than a bunch of disjointed, dismantled, disassociated teachings. That "the day" in Genesis is the same as "the day" in Revelation; that "the day" in Exodus is the same as "the day" in Acts - it’s still the SAME DAY, because it’s the same story! We are not faced here with stories but the story that is promised in one Covenant and fulfilled in the other Covenant; that is misunderstood in one Covenant as to its substance and time, but is REVEALED in the Second Covenant, both as to its substance and time. I’m not telling you anything now that you can’t read in the Bible. And what I’m telling you is true, and I urge you to read it and search it out yourself. I’m not here to lie to you, but my life is bound up in ministering Christ to you, through you. So we search together.

But this issue of "time" drives me up a tree! We hear all of these references to "time" in the Bible taken out of their context, and then presented so we have New Testament Christians as much in doubt of "time" as Old Covenant prophets were. And to me - that’s not right! That shouldn’t be so! We should, in the midst of the world, in the midst of all that is around us be declaring "The Time is at hand! The Time is come! This is The Day of The Lord!" It is the Day of His great blessing, and to some it is the day of His great wrath; but it is the same Day. It is The Day of His Coming. It is The Day of which every "day" in the Old Covenant spoke. God used "days" there.

What was the order of the day God used? What is the order of the Old Covenant day? It was a Sabbath day, and a feast day, but what was the order of the Old Covenant "day"? Because every day in the Old Covenant testified of "This Day" which Christ is. So - what is the order of the Old Covenant day? And to find that you just go back to Genesis. And it says it this way: "The evening and the morning were the first day. The evening and the morning were the second day. The evening and the morning were the third day." And it goes right through the sixth day. "The evening and the morning were the sixth day." It comes to the seventh day. There is NO evening, there is NO morning described to the seventh day! The seventh day is NOT defined by an evening and a morning. It is the day that God ended His Work; it is the end of the order of the Old Covenant Day. CHRIST IS THAT DAY! He is that Sabbath, He is the end of the order of the Old Covenant Day. What is the Old Covenant order? First evening, then morning; first night, then light. Isn’t it odd to you that the Old Covenant day is described that way? Evening - morning. Why? Because God’s order is always FIRST and SECOND. He brings the Second out of the First. He always does that. God can not bring death out of Life, so He brings Life out of death! He cannot bring darkness out of Light, so He brings Light out of darkness!

Therefore when He describes "the day" He says, darkness - light; night - morning; evening first - morning second. Where is that fulfilled except IN CHRIST? Where we come from darkness into Light; so we come from death unto Life. Where we come from the Old Testament order of day, to the seventh day, where there is NO Old Covenant order - there is just Light and Life. There is Sabbath. I don’t care what we take: the order and the time of it is the same - and CHRIST is the end of it. It always brings us to Him; it’s all fulfilled in Him! And look at all the things with Israel that were built around this order of the days. Their sacrifices, their feasts - everything. But it is interesting to note that this order - evening and morning was maintained right up until the seventh day. And the seventh day in the creation, and also in the Law, in Israel is always described as being outside the realm of the other six days. In the creation it is very obvious by description. And in Israel it is obvious because it says, "And the Lord hallowed, consecrated, and set aside unto Himself that day." It becomes very obvious that "this day" is considered of God to be outside the order of the other six days. And I am convinced by a great time of study on "this day" that in creation there was only six days. And that the seventh day was never part of creation; it wasn’t a creative day. It didn’t identify with anything of creation; and all the other six did. The seventh day only identified with GOD AND HIS ETERNAL REST.

Hebrews tells us this. The writer of Hebrews was pretty smart; whoever he was, he was in tune with the Holy Spirit. He brings this day right in, in Hebrews 4 he brings this day right out of the natural realm and says that if this was a NATURAL day, then why did God say "There remaineth a day, there remaineth a rest..."? He says you know good and well you haven’t found this rest in your natural Sabbath. This writer brought this day right into THE PERSON OF CHRIST. And what I’m telling you is: it all comes into Him! The Second Covenant is Christ Himself! It’s not "about" Him - it is Him! It’s fulfilled in Him. It’s not full of promises about Him - it is Him! HE IS THE I AM OF IT! I AM is come!! He is The I AM of The Second, and He promises that where I Am, there ye may be also; not as a location, but as a relationship. This Hebrews writer brings this day right in.

But I am convinced that as far as creation is concerned, there are only six days. Think of that - what happened is God took a day in the Jewish calendar - a natural day, and He called it Sabbath. But you know in the Bible that God Himself determined the Sabbath, and determined what day would be called the Sabbath, and He called it the seventh day. The Sabbath day has always been a day of The Spirit; it’s always been a SPIRITUAL DAY. And naturally in Israel God used a natural day to symbolize it, because He used a natural tent to symbolize a spiritual tent, and He used a natural priest to symbolize a spiritual priest. He used a natural mountain to symbolize a spiritual mountain, so why not use a natural day and set it aside from the other six; and He created, by doing that, a seven day week. But before that you can’t show me a seven day week. Before He stipulated that to Israel you can’t show that in the Bible. And He’s the one who stipulated it. So He took Himself a day and said, ‘This is the Seventh Day.’ Now you count from this day - forward and backwards, this is the seventh day. And He determined that; He said this is what you call The Sabbath. They didn’t know until He told them that!

In the week of creation there are six days. The seventh day is not associated with creation! It is not described like the other six are described. It is not evening and morning; it has no such description. Can you tell me why it doesn’t? The other six do. Why would the pattern be broken then in the seventh day? It does NOT say that God rested on the seventh day "and the evening and the morning were the seventh day". I recognize that as being "order" - we pass from one order to another order in this day: we have gone from the First to the Second. And in the First Covenant there is the testimony of the one to come - the testimony of the Second. So there is a testimony of that Second Day, the testimony of The Second Man, the testimony of the Second World. Or you can say it this way: the testimony of The One to come, The Man to come, The World to come; the testimony of The Second Priest, or the testimony of The New - it’s there!

My point is: we don’t need ANOTHER testimony! The New Covenant, the Second Covenant is NOT another testimony; it is the FULFILLMENT of the First! Now, TIME as days, weeks, months, seasons, feasts are all associated with the First Covenant. And all speak of the substance of the Second. So, the Sabbath speaks of the substance of the Second. The feast days, the seven feasts, summed up three times a year - you know they speak of Christ. Right on down they do. So when you read in the Bible, "When the fulness of TIME was come..." we need to understand it’s the time that the prophets didn’t know about, and yet it’s the time that all of these days and feasts and weeks testified of. The fulness of that HAS COME WITH CHRIST! So that now - IN CHRIST time is no longer the issue; time is of no spiritual significance. The significance of it has been fulfilled IN CHRIST! If the seventh day, if the Sabbath Day, the Jewish Sabbath - if it ever had any significance at all, it has been FULFILLED IN CHRIST. Therefore it no longer has any significance.

And Paul argues that in 2 Corinthians: that if the first administration had a glory (and it did have a glory), that glory has been so diminished by the glory of the Second that it has ceased to be glory at all, and is no longer significant. Is that not true concerning everything? It is true concerning the glory of the administration of Moses, the administration of death, the First Covenant, and it’s also true concerning the spiritual significance of days and weeks and seasons, or buildings or lands. How many Christians today still go to Palestine, still go to the natural country of Israel, and say they have visited "The Holy Land"? Not since The Cross! It LOST all of its significance AT THE CROSS! Its significance was only as a type and a shadow in the first place. And now it has no significance at all! How many millions and billions of dollars by Christians is spent every year in these "pilgrimages"? If you want to go as a historian, archeologist - you’ve got my blessing! But if you are going because it’s "holy"; if you’re going because you want to walk where Jesus walked and feel His presence in the tomb... when 2,000 years ago the angel said "Why are you looking in here? Why seek ye the living among the dead? HE IS NOT HERE!"

Then why? You can’t turn television on without seeing somebody mounting an expedition to the Holy Land. But that tomb, that hole in the ground has nothing in it! And it hasn’t had for 2,000 years! And that as well as the days are no longer spiritually significant, so why is the whole Church world still on the time and order of DAYS? Not the time and order of His Appearing - the time and order of days. Why are they still trying to figure out when will He come? Why is the issue with them - what day? I can understand why most in the Church have their meetings on Sunday - most people don’t have to work that day, but there’s nothing "holy" about that day. And yet the whole Christian world thinks that there is! See, I’m not against what so many people do, as the concept and the reason behind why they do it. Personally, I’d love to see the Body of Christ meet daily - break bread daily. I’m not against that concept. The more we do that, I think the better we are, and the more viable is our witness in the earth. But it gets a little aggravating to me that Sunday has become something like an Old Testament ritual. We get up, and we put on our "Christian" garb, and we go to "God’s House", and we get a lot of ritual, and then - we all go out - as a whole Christian community - and eat! Come on - it’s a ritual! But people actually think that is the way it’s supposed to be! And it is amazing to me. It’s just a ritual, it’s just Old Covenant mentality using New Covenant words and terminology because TIME remains an issue.

So, The Time of His Appearing. The prophets didn’t know it. They knew He was going to come, they knew He was going to suffer, they knew He was going to be glorified. They had no idea WHEN - not even Daniel, not even Ezekiel, not even Jeremiah - they didn’t know when. They knew for certainty, but they didn’t know WHEN for certainty. Galatians 4: Paul gives us the "for certainty" of the issue of TIME. Would to God that this would be settled in the heart of every Christian! Verse 1, " Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all." Look at the words "differeth nothing from a servant": this is a disturbing piece of information for most Christians. I know it was disturbing for those it was originally written, because of the word "nothing". I remember when this hit me face to face, and I began to "negotiate" (as most of us do) this point with God. ‘Surely there is something wherein I am different from a servant’. No - nothing! ‘Now, wait a minute, Lord. I must excel in something.’ Nothing! As long as he is a child - CHILD becomes the issue here; child becomes the key here. And the word "child" here is a reference to OLD COVENANT MENTALITY. It is a reference to natural Israel at that time, Israel after the flesh, Old Covenant Israel. They were an heir, the promises were given to them, but until they come to the placement of a son - which placement only takes place with the revealing of Christ - they were a child in their mentality. Age is not the issue here: MENTALITY is. Paul shows that to be so in 1 Corinthians 13 when he speaks of coming from a child to a man; coming from that which is in part, to that which is perfect.

You know that the Law and the prophets were IN PART. You know that The Word that comes in Christ is PERFECT. You know that the First is in part; you know that the Second is Perfect. Again, the issue is First and Second. How long do we differ nothing from a servant? As long as we abide in Old Covenant mentality, we are considered a child. Let’s look at this in Hebrews 3:1-6. "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." So long as you are a child - The Old Covenant; have not come to the acknowledgment of The Son - in your heart, as being your only Life. You have not come to the acknowledgment that The Son is come, does live, and we live only by Him. Then according to Galatians and 1 Corinthians 13, the child mentality - differeth nothing from a servant though he be lord of all!

See, that’s the whole shame of it. The shame of the whole picture is that if you be in Christ, if Christ is your Life - then you are The House of The Son! And you are joined with Him in Son placement, which is what Galatians 4 is all about, because "adoption" means "son placement", and you are heir of all things. But as long as you are a child, you differ nothing from an Old Covenant son. So here’s where Christians place themselves with regard to this issue of time. How are the preachers today any different than the Old Covenant prophets when their message to the people is still "When will He come? One day He’s going to come. You may just be driving down the street, and ZAP - out through the roof you go! We used to call these "sun roofs"; we call them "rapture windows - keep them rolled back all the time!" Now, I’m being facetious, but this shouldn’t even be an issue in the mind of Christians.

This whole issue - it’s like Ishmael; it should never have been born! Ishmael never should have been born; but Abraham’s mistake filled the earth - didn’t it? God said ‘you want a son? Okay, I’ll give you a thorn, that will gouge you in your side the rest of your life! Remember this - he’s NOT My Son, he’s NOT My Heir, My Covenant is with Isaac.’ From time to time, folks, He stops you and I in our tracks, and he says, ‘Okay, you’ve gone ahead, you’ve claimed the promises of God on this and that. Now you’ve created this thing - and it’s going to gouge you in the ribs the rest of your life! But I’ll tell you this - it’s NOT Christ!’ Boy, what a rebuke! And the horrible thing about that is you turn and see Christ; you repent, and the thing you created - the monster you created - continues! It doesn’t go away. We need to understand these monsters that have been created by misinterpreting the scripture, by not bringing all things into Christ are not going to go away. The system that is built upon is not going to go away. The only answer is The TRUTH! The flood is not going to go away; the only answer is - get in the Ark! You could stand out there and rebuke the water... but you need to get in the Ark! The Truth remains for all who will see Him, the power of The Truth is beyond comprehension for all who would know Him and see Him. The deliverance of The Truth is beyond comprehension for all who will know Him, but The Truth delivers no one who REFUSES to know Him. "You shall know the truth, and THE TRUTH shall make you free."

The Truth doesn’t come and jump on you, and beat you down, tie you up and throw you in a corner and put restraints upon you. But these Ishmaels that we create: we turn them lose and they run throughout the world and these doctrines... and they just become a system. Now they’ve stolen the name "Church". Christianity no longer means relationship, but religion, and it’s the Christians that have allowed that to happen. It’s the ministry that has allowed that to happen! So now its not synonymous with a people who are in a relationship with God, a people who are in relationship with Jesus: it’s a religion based on certain concepts. Boy, that’s depressing, but my point is that the child mentality prevails. And there’s only one answer to it: " differs nothing from a servant, but is under tutors and governors until the TIME appointed of The Father." And the whole Church world out here is still waiting for "the time appointed of The Father", and THAT TIME CAME 2,000 YEARS AGO!! When you were born again, you were born into the time appointed of The Father! Throughout the whole of the Old Covenant God had an "appointed time". The prophets didn’t know it; but they knew it was appointed, they knew a time was coming. They didn’t know when. So now comes the time appointed of The Father. When was it appointed? Throughout the Old Covenant it was appointed. So the whole issue of Time is bound up here with Divine appointment - The Time Appointed of The Father. Not "a time", "some time" - THE Time appointed of The Father. All Old Covenant time elements are summed up into this. We were under tutors and governors until The Time Appointed of The Father.

Let me show you this in another place, in another way. Look in Galatians 3:23, " But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." That shows that it comes in Christ - it’s in Him. Time appointed of The Father - He’s already defined it. It’s the time of the Law, the Time of the Old Covenant. But the point is the Old Covenant is not just something written in stones, it’s a whole SYSTEM of things. The Old Covenant is a whole mentality that is bound up with time. And what I’m telling you is that "New Covenant" preachers have gone back into the Old Covenant, and revived the "time" and made it an issue again. It’s just the whole Old Covenant mentality! If you bring any part of it alive, you bring it all alive. In my opinion this whole system that is preaching "one day the Lord is going to come" but nobody knows when: He’s going to come, but time is a mystery" - they may as well be offering animal sacrifices also! Because I don’t see any difference in reviving one Old Covenant uncertainty than reviving all of them. They say, well, brother, we know He came once and died for our sins. Our question is, when is He going to come the second TIME and "take us to be with Himself"?

And I’m saying: HE ALREADY DID THAT! We are in Him! It is a Spiritual Kingdom. We have it in earthen vessels, but it is not of the earthen vessel. It is in earth vessels, in fact, so that the excellency of the power can be of God and NOT of us. He did not come and fulfil part of the First Covenant: but part does not equal whole. The Second Covenant can not come until all of the First is ended. He taketh away the First THAT He might establish the Second. Hebrews 9:15-17 says the First Covenant was a testament. It demanded the death of the Testator. Except there be a death of the testator, the testament is not in force. It can’t be partially enforced. He died once and for all! If He didn’t finish it: if there’s still something left out, that means He’s got to come back and die the rest of the way. You can say that’s ridiculous, but that’s my whole point! It is ridiculous! This whole idea of dispensationalism is ridiculous! This whole idea that the Second Covenant is not the complete embodiment of the fulfillment of the First Covenant is ridiculous! He HAS died once and for all, He HAS made the Testament perfect through His death and resurrection.

It isn’t going to get any better - it already is! It’s just that we refuse to accept Him in the fulness of the Second. Yet we want to be "Christians". We want to have our sins forgiven and say ‘one day we are going to heaven.’ We have separated, we have made a division in the Second Covenant. We’ve put another veil in the Second Tabernacle. There is NO VEIL in the Second Tabernacle! We’ve just hung one up there! We’ve said we are saved, our sins are forgiven, one day we are going to heaven. That’s what the First Tabernacle said! The First Tabernacle said your sins are forgiven, and one day you’ll get to "go behind the veil". Your sins are forgiven: that’s what the First Tabernacle said, whereby they ministered day by day by day - with the blood of animals. That’s what that Covenant said, but it held them at arms length from the glory of God. It held them at arms length from the Holy of Holies, which was representatively heaven itself.

Now we’ve allowed dispensationalism, and dispensational minded theologians to erect a veil in the Tabernacle, which Christ Himself is, and separate us from the Glory of God, which is our birthright, which is our inheritance, which is the substance of the very House we are! We have allowed Christianity to become an "empty House"; a House emptied of the glory, a House waiting on the glory to come - one day. That’s what Old Covenant Israel was! There’s no getting around this: that is what we’ve done. We’ve done it under different names, and under different guises, but that’s what we’ve done. We’ve allowed preachers to tell us, and tell us this simply by not preaching the Truth, that we are not in Christ, that He is not in us, that we do not dwell in glory, that the perfect has not come. We’ve allowed them to bring time back in and make an issue out of it. Unfortunately most of the ministry today falls in a category that can only be described by "thieves and robbers", who would under the cover of night, sneak into the Tabernacle of Moses and steal all of the gold cups and the golden altar, and the furniture and take it away! Well, you know when that happened: it happened under the Babylonian empire! We have allowed ministry, theology to come in and steal THE REALITY OF CHRIST represented in all that furniture. So that there is no fulfillment in the Church any more of all the furniture of the Old Covenant Tabernacle.

That’s what has happened - thieves and robbers! And they leave us with a promissory note! That’s like adding insult to injury! What have you given me for all that you’ve stolen? ‘Well, I’ve got a good sermon on "The Coming of The Lord".’ What are you giving me for what you have stolen out of the House of God? The House which WE ARE? ‘Well, I’ve given you a PROMISE that one day, when you die you’re going to heaven. Isn’t that enough?’ Wait - you have stolen heaven: and left me with a PROMISE? And you want me to call THAT the gospel? And give you my tithes every Sunday morning for telling me that lie? That’s what every Christian ought to be saying! They ought to be holding shepherds accountable: not for how pretty the "barn" is, but for what’s in the "feed bag". I’d like to see every honest hearted Christian just stand up and say, ‘Wait a minute! What is it you are giving us in return for all that you have stolen?’

Now, if you think that sounds harsh, go read the words of Jesus. Go read the words when He called them thieves and robbers, bandits, blind leaders of the blind. Read Peter’s remarks and read Paul’s remarks concerning those that were still trying to come in and bring them back into the system of Judaism, the system of the Old Covenant. Those Judaizers were not stealing the PROMISES from the Church; they were stealing the REALITY! They were leaving them with the promises: they were denying that they were fulfilled In Christ! Our preachers today are doing the same thing! They aren’t going to take your promises away from you. No - they’ll preach it to you every Sunday morning! They haven’t taken the promises away: they’ve taken the REALITY away. They’ve stolen the fulfillment of them from you. And they want everybody to thank them for doing it! But I have no thanks for that.

"...differeth nothing from a servant though he be lord of all. But when the fulness of the TIME was come, God sent forth His Son..." THE SON IS ALWAYS GOD’S ANSWER TO TIME. Sent forth His Son - look at that. The Second is The Son: the ANSWER to the First, but the Second is also the END of the First. Remember Hebrews 1? God spake...divers times and ways. What is the answer to that? ‘Well, He decided after a period of time to speak in another way.’ No - that’s not it! I’ve said that the New Covenant is not a sequel to the First, but most Christians seem to think it is: that the First Covenant had some promises to it and the Second Covenant has some better ones. No - the Second Covenant is the fulfillment of the ones made in the First! That’s how they are better. They are better because they are fulfilled! That’s the reason it’s a "better" sacrifice, but it’s fulfilled. Better priesthood - fulfilled. It does not point beyond itself, because there is nothing beyond it. That’s how it is "better".

So what’s the end of God speaking in times and ways, divers ways and sundry times? "Hath spoken IN SON!" Isn’t that basically what’s being said in Galatians 4? "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth HIS SON, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem..." So, what Son are we talking about? CHRIST CRUCIFIED! Then, where is "time" fulfilled? AT THE CROSS! Where did "fulness of time" come? AT THE CROSS! And time element does not proceed beyond The Cross... it can not proceed beyond its fulfillment. We must understand that if you take it beyond its fulfillment, it immediately becomes perversion. Up until the very time of The Cross, the seventh day of the Old Covenant was holy. But do we understand that the very NEXT Old Covenant seventh day after The Cross was now a perversion? Because it perpetuated the old beyond the New; it perpetuated the First into the Second. It said there are two Sabbaths. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that any part of the Testimony of the Old Covenant, if it is taken beyond its fulfillment immediately becomes perversion? It becomes Anti Christ. The word "Anti Christ" doesn’t mean against Christ; it means substitute for Christ. It means that which is not Christ saying it is Christ. That is Anti Christ. It’s a perversion! That’s the Anti Christ system, and that’s what the scripture teaches. If you take it beyond The Cross it becomes Anti Christ. For you see, there was a time for the First, but the time of its end has come.

So back to Hebrews 9:26. "...but now, once in the end of the world hath he appeared." Now this is the same appearing, the same coming, the same sending we’ve been talking about in Galatians. "In the fulness of the time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law..." "Hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." It is exactly the same thing. It is called "the end of the world". And it is the only end of the only world that the Bible ever speaks of. In Matthew 24 Jesus says to His disciples, "You see this temple..." And He was talking about the whole temple structure there at that time, all the whole compound, because they were showing it to Him: they were so proud of it! And He said, "You see this? Not one stone will be left upon another." That scared them to death! They said, "Lord, WHEN..." You see, because The Cross had not yet come, TIME was still an issue. "WHEN will these things be? WHEN will the world end? WHAT is the sign of your coming?" They joined all those things together with the destruction of the temple system, temple complex - Old Covenant world.

Now the answer to that question is right here: "Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." When did that end come? AT THE CROSS it came! The Appearing of Christ is and was absolutely necessary to the end of the First: theologically, historically, and in you - spiritually. As I said, what He did with regard to the First, He did 2,000 years ago. But He didn’t just do it as an event, or as a historical event. He did it as an ETERNAL WORD. He actually fulfilled all that had been said, so that when you and I are born again here in the year 2003, we come right into the same reality as though The Cross were today. For us what He did - is done! You are born into the reality of it. He is NOT going to have to do it again. But we are going to have to reckon it done. You have to RECKON your sins forgiven based upon His blood. You have to RECKON that we have come from death unto Life by His resurrection. And that word "reckon" is a HEART conviction, a Spirit work in your heart.

So as to the First, He has appeared once - at the end of it. As to the Second, He appears as the beginning, as The Head, as the fulness. As to the Second He is ever appearing! Verse 28 says that. It says, " So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many..." He did that, He accomplished that. "... and unto them that LOOK for him..." Here’s the only prerequisite: "...and to them that look for him shall he appear the second without sin unto salvation." This is a fulfillment of Old Covenant typology. One time a year - and the Hebrew writer has been saying this, and now he’s bringing this typology to a fulfillment. Here is the High Priest typology he is talking about, and the Jews were perfectly aware of it. One time a year, on the Day of Atonement which was part of the last Feast of Israel; that Feast of Tabernacles which had in it the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Atonement and the Feast of the Ingathering. One time a year the High Priest took the blood of animals, and he went in bearing that blood, for his sins and the sins of Israel behind the veil, and sprinkled part of that blood upon the Mercy Seat - offering the gift of his blood to God. Now He was offering the blood of animals, but which God had already accepted as His Son. If a High Priest had cut his finger and put his own blood there - he would have died in a minute!

But God could not accept the blood of an unrighteous man. No, only the sacrifices carefully prepared, and then only in a representative way could they be accepted of God as righteous. So they saw the High Priest go in there - they saw that. On that day all of Israel was gathered. It was a Sabbath day, and they were all there; they had to be there. Not only did they have to be there to see him go in, they had to stay there until he came out, because until he came out, their Salvation was not sure. His coming out would show them the surety of their Salvation. You must understand that when he went in, he had the full regalia, which means he had to breastplate on, which represented Israel, His Body. He had their names upon his shoulders, which represented the spiritual government that would come upon the shoulders of another. He had the miter of righteousness, of Eternal Life. He was girt about with the golden girdle of Truth. Do you understand? It was CHRIST!

But it was Christ in relation to His people. It was the High Priest in relation to Israel: Christ in relation to the Church, Christ in relation to His Body. That’s the picture. In death, because Jesus said I must go away, but if I go away I will come again and receive you unto Myself. The High Priest went away - they couldn’t go where he went. Jesus said right now you can’t go where I’m going, but I will receive you, that where I am, there you may be. So he went - and they waited, and waited, and ....waited. THEY LOOKED FOR HIM. Now, where were they looking? They were looking where they knew He was! They weren’t looking "around". And having been accepted of God, he comes out - he comes out in type of The Resurrection! He doesn’t come out carrying blood or carrying sin. He comes out without sin - and to the joy of all of Israel, he presents himself. And all of Israel sees IN HIM themselves accepted of God! So are YOU accepted IN THE BELOVED! "To those who look for Him, He shall appear the second, without sin unto Salvation."

His appearing in the Second is in this order: not in the same order in which He appeared in the First, because He does NOT appear to die again. HE APPEARS AS THE RESURRECTION OF ALL WHO LIVE BY HIM.

Pt. 5 - Divine Order of His Person

We have been speaking of the two Covenants. You have an old heaven and an old earth. These identify with a Covenant, with a spiritual order that is defined in a Covenant. Failure to see that just sends you off in a lot of erroneous directions. You must understand that in our whole Bible we are dealing with Two Covenants: one Covenant where things are defined, promised and prophesied; the other Covenant where all of these things are brought into their reality and their fulfillment in a Person - The Person of Christ. And that’s it! The simplicity of this is just overwhelming when you come to realize it. It is immense - yes, but the simplicity of it: that the Bible deals with two Covenants, and that the whole intention of God finally comes to be bringing a people from the one to the other - from the Promise to the POSSESSION, from the prophecy to the FULFILLMENT; from the type and the shadow and the principle to THE PERSON. And the means by which He did that, though a mystery for ages and ages and ages, came to be revealed as THE CROSS - Christ crucified. That’s the way He did it!

Then you get specific - as to the time and order of His appearing, because His appearing is necessary to these two Covenants. It is necessary to the end of one, and necessary to the beginning and fulness of the other. And we have been seeing the taking away and the establishing. We noted that the term "He taketh away" means "murder violently, to kill, to slay, to murder - but all of it is violently." He Taketh Away. Well, who is it who cannot comprehend that this is The Cross: this is His death. And this is not even in a natural way, but in a spiritual way. It’s not just the little humiliation that was done to His body - that’s not really the violence! Paul suffered much more than that, and so did most of them that were crucified. It was a common practice to scourge all of them. No, the violence was something else. The violence was the passing away of a whole order of things. Isaiah spoke of the violence. It was not so obvious to the natural eye, as it was to the Spirit. That whole thing... even nature seemed to testify at that hour to the violence that was going on: with the darkness that was upon the face of the earth and with the tremendous heaving of the earth in the earthquake, with the rending of the Temple veil. They all have tremendous spiritual significance at the particular time. But the violence of it - and that is the taking away.

Now it only stands to logical, spiritual reason that if the taking away is in His death, the establishing must follow to be in His resurrection. Not only is Bible typology full of that, but just the reasoning of order tells you that. The prophets prophesied this two-fold prophecy of Him that tripped up the Jews; that He is both a Suffering Servant and a Ruling King. And the mystery of that is how and when? We dealt with that in the last lesson. Peter said they all prophesied of this, but they did not know the time spoken of concerning His sufferings and His glorification. When? The time. "But when the fulness of the time was come..." So the time of His appearing has already taken place. As to the First, and as to the Second. When does He appear in the Second? He appears when you turn to see Him; He appears when you look for Him. The appointed time of the Father has already come! It’s fulfilled IN CHRIST - there is NOT going to be another time appointed of The Father. We looked at time coming to its fulness, coming to its realization - AT HIS APPEARING. In other words: His appearing brought time to its fulness. "Once at the end of the world, hath He appeared..." And His appearing designated the END OF THAT WORLD. And it is that appearing - to die, because it is always spoken of that way: "appearing to take away, appearing to put away sin, appearing to offer Himself." And that appearing was once - it was final; it was at the Old Covenant age, the Old Covenant world, His appearing was necessary.

And the underlying thought in my search has been the NECESSITY OF HIS APPEARING; that if His appearing was necessary to the First, it is necessary to the Second. So you can’t tell me that we are in the Second but He hasn’t appeared yet! That doesn’t make sense - it is not order; it violates the order of the First and the Second, which order begins to be established even in the garden with Adam and Eve, and continues on as a Divine Order that is finally fulfilled by Christ, in Christ - The First and The Second. And the fulfillment of it is the taking away of the one, and the establishing of the other. And this - THROUGH HIS APPEARING. How does He establish the Second? He appears IN it - not at the end of it! He appears as the substance of it. Just as He told Peter: it is upon this rock, upon this comprehension given of Me by My Father, that I will establish My Church. I will build it, I will complete it, I will bring it to its established finish.

How does He establish a thing? He appears in it! Reason with me: the Tabernacle of Moses - how was it established as The House of God? What gave it credibility? What gave it manifest credibility that this was God’s House? We have done this as God said. It is accepted of Him - what gave it that credibility? The fact that Moses followed the pattern? No sir. What was it? It was THE APPEARING OF HIS GLORY! It was God appearing in it that gave it credibility, that established it as His House. You can see that in the Tabernacle of Moses, but where you can see it more than in any other place is in the Temple of Solomon. You must read that: how he built that Temple. Everything in tens, everything oversized, everything with gold - all of that. There that magnificent structure is, in all of its natural beauty, but no validation yet. It is not yet established as The House of God. Solomon says, "Now go get The Ark of The Covenant." It was the only original piece of furniture: the only thing Solomon hadn’t rebuilt and made ten of. That piece of furniture symbolizes God dwelling in, and appearing in the midst of The Redeemed, in the midst of His people.

"Go get The Ark of The Covenant. Bring it into its place." I can never read that without getting goose bumps, and I start bawling, because they did that and set it there, and they took the staves out! It was never to be moved! And immediately the Glory of God filled that place! And the Temple was established in His appearing. That’s what establishes the Second. It is established in the appearing of Him, the appearing of His glory - beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into that same image, from the image of the First glory to the image of the Second glory; the image of the lesser glory, which by reason of the Second glory is made to be non glorious. So we come from glory to glory: the glory of the First to the glory of the Second, even as by The Spirit of The Lord. That’s how it is established - IN HIS APPEARING. And it grieves my heart that precious, well meaning and yet ill taught, misled Christians are waiting for some facsimile of that. "One day He’s going to appear... One day we’ll see Jesus..." And nothing in their heart - by their own testimony - is established in them! The whole dispensational mess at least says that: that it’s His appearing that establishes all that.

But they refuse Him in His appearing! The Jews refused Him in His appearing at the end of the First, and for God’s sake, THE CHURCH has now refused Him in His appearing in the Second! And it’s the same in both: He came to His own and HIS OWN received Him not - as a whole! But to those who will receive Him, to them ... I think of that, and I think, Good Lord, what a tragedy, what a shame! What a shame that all of Israel did not receive Him, and that the Church would start out in that strength. Now that didn’t stop them, but what a shame. It didn’t stop The Church, it didn’t stop the reality of Christ, but to those who did receive Him... and that’s the way it’s always been. It’s the same way when He took Israel out of Egypt. Who went in? Not the group that came out! And today it is the same, and for many today it is because The Truth is so far from them, and withheld from them, not because they refuse it. And not only that, they are given this substitute for The Truth! That’s the thing: the whole Christian theology today pounds it in - ‘Sleep light! He may come in the middle of the night! Watch what you are going to do tomorrow...’ And then everybody takes their own view of that! Oh God, with them the Second is NOT established, and it never will be established. And many create a third, and go back and take the promises of the First - totally ignoring the Second!

So this is where we are: not only defining the First and the Second, not only realizing the one brings about the end of the other, and not only realizing that all things of the First are gathered up, and fulfilled in the Second, realizing that the Second is The Person of Christ Himself, but the whole baseline of this search has been to understand the NECESSITY of His appearing as to the First and to the Second. As to the First: it has no end, no finalization except that HE APPEAR. To the Second: it has no substance, no reality, no validation, no establishing except HE APPEAR. To the one He is the end; to the other He is the beginning which has no end, no linear end. He is the fulness, the substance.

But now we want to focus on THE ORDER OF HIS APPEARING as to the First and Second. Let’s look in Revelation 1:8, "I am Alpha and Omega", and as a matter of fact, "the beginning and the ending" was NOT in the original. And I was surprised at that, but then I said it shouldn’t be because actually what is being defined here is the PERSON of God Himself. This "which is, and which was, and which is to come..." There’s a much better translation than that. It should be - "which is, and is, and is..." Eternal, because it is describing not anything that He is doing, but Who He Himself is. "I am Alpha - Omega." And that’s what I want to look at: A Divine Order of His Person.

As I began to look at this in the light of the First and the Second, I saw The Cross in a light in which I had never seen it before: an enlargement of an understanding of The Cross. I stayed right here: "I am that I am... I am Alpha, I am Omega." I looked at The I AM of God - The Self Existent One. And the Alpha and the Omega does NOT suggest a beginning and an ending: it suggests The I AM Who is without beginning or without ending! Alpha and Omega. And to diagram this you would just have to diagram it in a circle, and put "I AM" in the middle of a circle, and "Alpha" and "Omega" just revolving around it, because there just isn’t any end! That is just an attempt by language to show the never-ending God; and that’s why it goes on and uses "which is, and which was, and which is to come". But all Bible translators finally agree: which is ETERNAL. Except the dispensationalists! They say, ‘see... "Him which is to come." But this has to do with the Being of God - Eternal.

So I stayed with this as I had been considering the "Order of His Appearing", and the Time and Order of His Appearing. And I began to realize that The Lord was showing me that there was an ORDER. And first I was seeing the Order of God: Alpha - Omega. This is what got me into First and Second, and I realized that this is the Order of The Book! God is the Order of this Book! And I began to see the Order of The I Am. Then it hit me - the END and the BEGINNING. And it just crushed me! And then The Spirit of The Lord spoke: a reversal of order: The Cross is a reversal of order. Divine Order is Reversed at The Cross. And I thought: My God, it is: the end and the beginning. And The Lord said, ‘That’s the only way you can come, son. If I hadn’t reversed the order... how can you approach the unapproachable?’ I had already seen in the "I AM" business that there isn’t any way to get in there - except He reverses the order. And all of a sudden I saw the real cost of The Cross! I saw what is the law of the kingdom: the first shall be last, the last shall be first. There it is - REVERSAL OF DIVINE ORDER: to become last and first, to become first - the end; and then - the beginning.

"He made Himself of no reputation, took upon Himself the form of a servant, became obedient unto death..." but I hadn’t realized what had really happened for that to take place: what He really became for that to take place, that He may be "The Way, The Truth and The Life, that no man can come to The Father but by Me", and all of a sudden I saw why! No - there was NO WAY EXCEPT HIM. See, He didn’t BRING an end to the First: He became the end of it. He didn’t just GIVE a beginning to the Second: He is the beginning of it. And all of this He did, and accomplished and settled IN HIMSELF - before anybody came, or anybody did anything! HE DID IT! He became this. Yes, and in doing this He fulfilled and He accomplished, but the point is THE COST OF IT, and His willingness to do it. And that’s why The Cross is such an enigma to people: such an enigma to the Jews and to the Gentiles. It is the hidden wisdom of God: it doesn’t make any sense to the natural mind whatsoever! Because - who would do something that stupid? Who would do that? Nobody would do that! Even Jesus hints at that in some of His parables: perchance somebody would die for the just or for the good. But the Jews didn’t want anything to do with this!

The prophets said: Suffering Servant - Ruling King. It’s unfortunate that the Church world has separated that by 2,000 years, because they are only separated by THREE DAYS! They are only separated by death, burial and resurrection. Because in The Resurrection He establishes us in Divine Order and becomes to us - beginning and end, and it is properly translated there that way, and the translators have left the words in there because they belong there. He brings Divine Order back! And establishes us in it. But you don’t come that way first. First you come to the END, before you can come to the BEGINNING. And that’s what the natural does NOT want to do. The Jews didn’t want to do it! Even with Moses... Paul said we speak plainly. We are not going to hide this thing like Moses when he put a veil over his face because Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. And that’s just it: we have no problem accepting Jesus as "The Beginning", but it is an enigma to our soul to say you must face Him as "The End." No one wants to do that.

And so in our modern concept of things we just preach Him as "The Beginning". And He’s not really presented as The End of much of anything because we don’t want to look stedfastly to the end of that which is abolished; but let me remind you again that the end of that which is abolished is NOT that which is abolished. It is not the end of itself. The END of that which is abolished is HIM. And every time you see Him, you see the end of that which is abolished. So if the dealings of God with you are to get you to see Him there, then every time you see The Lord then that’s the issue that is going to be brought there UNTIL that issue is finally settled. And THEN you see Him Who is also The Beginning. But Divine Order says HE IS FIRST THE END. The whole suffering of The Cross says that it’s got to be this way. It’s not up for argument. When you see Him, He will first be - END, because that’s what He became. Then He will be - BEGINNING, but not until this "end" issue is dealt with and settled - with violence!

And this has to happen in the heart of a believer. And it’s not that we are never brought back to that understanding of The Cross. I believe we are brought back regularly: but when we are brought back, it’s not like that thing necessarily happens all over again. We are brought back and we RECKON upon that which took place in us. Many don’t understand this, and say, "I’m just trying to get rid of the old man, just trying to put the old man to death." No - you’ve got to suffer that violence. You’ve got to suffer as He suffered. You’ve got to suffer it once and for all. It’s got to be that violent, that real! It has to be - then you’re brought back to that. But not that it necessarily happens to you all over again, but it becomes your basis of reckoning. You are brought back to it and you reckon - and then you go on. And then you are brought back - and you reckon... It becomes a process of Divine reckoning, but you’ve got to have a foundation, a base for reckoning. It can’t just be teaching; it’s got to be experienced. It’s got to be His Appearing - He has had to appear IN YOU as The End - the violent end of the First. And you have had to have a relationship with Him as that violent end of the First. It has to have taken place, because you are going to be brought back to that time and time again as a point of reckoning.

"RECKONING yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God..." How? Through Jesus Christ The Lord! Not through some teaching process, not through some evolution process. No - not at all. Each time you see Him, you see Him in the absoluteness of Who He is. Yes, because there is an ongoing transformation of our soul, but we get it all mixed up! We have to understand that this ongoing transformation of our soul is based upon an absoluteness; it’s based upon A FINISHED WORK. With Him it is absolute. And with us the reckoning has to be based upon an absolute. Not - "I’m dying" - I’M DEAD! Not - "The First is passing" - IT’S GONE! And this will be in whatever areas we are being dealt with in the First, whether it is promises, prophecies or whatever. That’s the way it’s got to be, because in Him it is Once for all. So we suffer that trauma, and then we are brought back, according to The Divine Counsel of God, according to the working of The Spirit in our lives... from time to time we are brought back and we reckon upon that. We are brought back to "Ground Zero". We are brought back to the plumb line - and we reckon... and we continue.

And it’s the same way with the Beginning. We are always being consumed by the reality - HE IS MY LIFE. But it’s not - "He’s becoming my Life" - He IS my Life. And I’m brought back to that time and time again. And in the realization of that we can say, ‘Well, I am at least UNDERSTANDING that He is my Life, but it’s not a reckoning that He is "becoming" something" - He is! And I’ve seen this in searching "The Coming." The issue with Christ is NOT "coming"; it is, IS COME. He is come! We’ve made an issue of "coming" like an event. The only time that was an issue was in the Old Covenant - they didn’t know the time. He fulfilled it in the fulness of the time. That is NOT an issue in the New Covenant now, and yet we’ve carried that over in the New Covenant. We’ve made that an issue, and in doing it we’ve created a "Third Covenant", that third system that is an illusion. So we must realize that He’s not "becoming my Life". I’m brought in a cycle, and each time I see "He is my Life", and I walk in that reality. But each time in that cycle you come to Who He is - END - BEGINNING; END - BEGINNING. It is a constant cycle of reckoning, and the only time it becomes difficult is when we want to hold on to something of which He is the End. Then there’s a little warfare, there’s a little difficulty there. And then the Lord will say, Okay, but you’re going no farther in this business that "He’s your Life" until you settle this issue.

And we see this time and time again, and it’s sad to see this in people. They are seemingly growing up in The Lord, and all of a sudden - it just stops. And then in dealing with them, you finally come to realize that there is an issue to be dealt with here - an issue. And there’s nothing you can do about it: you feel helpless, because you know there is nobody that can help you with YOUR issue. You either turn loose of it or you don’t. You either let it come to its ending in Him, or you don’t. But if you don’t, you’ve denied Him as Who He is; and if He’s not the End, then He’s not the Beginning either. So there you are, and you stay there for some time, but sooner or later you do learn. Thank God - you do learn something!

And what you learn is - the quicker I release this, the quicker I’m going to find the fulness in Christ! Jesus says that - If you seek to save your life (this thing, your soul), you’ll lose it. But if you will lose it... and you learn that. And it’s not that it ever ceases to be real, because every issue that comes up is real or it wouldn’t be an issue in the first place. It’s in you - and it’s real. But you do learn. You learn because of your understanding of Christ; you learn because of your faith in Him; you learn to obey; you learn that obedience is better than sacrifice. So when you see Him, and you see Him as the End, and there’s an issue there, then that’s the thing He dissolves. You reckon the thing, and you reckon it according to that violence of The Cross. You don’t give it a sleeping pill - it’s just taken away. It’s taken away, but oh, the release you find now IN HIM, because it has released you into a larger view of the Beginning! And soon you understand that, and you come along with this same spirit that the writers here had: ‘Hey, it’s NOT WORTHY to be compared! I reckon it but dung for the excellency...’ You learn that! But the course never changes; the process doesn’t stop. It’s that way.

Now I want to show you this reversal of order in the Old Covenant - in the Tabernacle. And it makes perfect sense that it should, because what was the Lord doing with Israel? Bringing them from one to the other; bringing them from the First to the Second. We say that He was taking them from Egypt to Canaan, but that didn’t really have anything to do with it. That’s not really the issue: just like Christians trying to make heaven and hell the issue - as places. No, the First and the Second was the issue; from the First Israel to the Second Israel - that was the whole issue with God. And the Tabernacle was right in the middle of that for forty years. The transition from the First to the Second was made at the Tabernacle. For 40 years the First was dying: the Second was coming forth. And it was based on a "done deal"; based on an absolute, that the Tabernacle was a picture of - every day. That’s the issue with Israel. The Second would go in, did go in, but it wasn’t just a campaign to take over a country. And we think as Christians that’s what we are supposed to do! That has NEVER been the issue.

The Tabernacle is that transition from the First to the Second - that’s where it took place, just like it did at The Cross. There was a transition from the First Israel to the Second Israel at The Cross. And historically much of this 40 day and 40 year period is seen there, but the absoluteness of it took place at one time - it took place in three days. And the absoluteness of coming from the First to the Second in the Old Israel was right there in the door of that Tabernacle with the absoluteness of the death of the sacrifice, the absoluteness of what whose feasts stood for - it was done right there. Oh yes, it was being worked out in them over a period of 40 years, but everything was being done on the basis of an ABSOLUTENESS. Everything is done in you and I on the basis of an absoluteness - THE ABSOLUTE WORK OF CHRIST; The Work that He absolutely DID, and IS, and FINISHED. It is absolute! People don’t like absolutes, but when we see The Cross, we are faced with an absolute!

Now from Exodus chapters 20 to 27 is where this is. From Exodus 20 to 24 the Law is given. And what do we see in here first? Here’s the order: the two stone tablets representing GOD HIMSELF, representing the I AM of His Person, which later on is fulfilled in Christ Himself, Who is that Living Word. I want you to see how this started off - first God showed Himself to Moses. Now we know it was the backside, and it was a type and shadow, but nonetheless the Law is set there. He didn’t show him a Tabernacle: He showed him Himself, and He gave him The Word. Yes, it was engraved in stone. It was to come in The Person of His Son later, but the order is there. Moses saw the I AM, Moses received the Word from Him - engraved in a stone. Moses got all of this on top of the mountain; yes in a rearward view, but nonetheless, he got this view.

He gave Moses the stone tablets and showed Himself to Moses on behalf of Israel. But how could Israel approach this God, and The Word that this God had given? This God, Who in His Self is Alpha, Omega - unapproachable? Beginning and End? He gives HIS WORD that the people may approach Him BY HIS WORD. But what did Moses do with those two tablets? Did he just take them and throw them out there in the middle of the people? No - God said, now here’s the way it will work. Be sure you get this pattern correct. Be sure you do everything according to the order, the pattern that I am going to show you in the mountain, because this is the way Israel will approach Me. And it is the ONLY way that it can approach Me.

The Word. How can they approach? So what does He do? He says you are going to build a tent, you are going to build a Tabernacle for these tablets, and He gave him the order of it through the rest of those chapters. And the first piece of furniture to be made, the first of the order was THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. So if you want to look at The Cross: you can see it in the Tabernacle, and here’s the Ark of The Covenant setting in the Tabernacle. And then He begins to design the rest of the furniture, and it goes from The Ark - and everything comes outward. The last piece of furniture designed is the brazen altar. But for Israel, the first is the last, and the last is the first. For Israel - order is reversed! They have to come to the brazen altar: that which is last is first. They come by the end to the beginning, where The Word of God is, where the Glory of God is. Order is reversed so that they may approach, and only that by blood: only that by violence. There were no animals killed at The Ark: blood was sprinkled there, but the animals were killed outside. Israel came here, here’s the door.

And when Jesus said, "I AM the door", believe me, He understood what He was talking about! Every one of those pieces of furniture were types and symbols, and are fulfilled in His Person - every one of them. And so is the order in which they are arranged. Now today, it is very obvious that the way "religion" presents Salvation, they have decided to come in and rearrange the furniture in God’s House! And they don’t want an old, bloody looking altar! Can you imagine the mess? Can you imagine after you’ve slain thousands of bulls, sheep and goats - what that must have looked like? We don’t think about that, but I’ve been in slaughter houses, that were supposed to be kept clean. But can you imagine what it must have been like then?

Well, that’s a pretty gruesome look at Salvation, but you’ve got to face that one before you ever get anywhere toward the Glory of God. But today we’ve just rearranged the furniture, and said, ‘That doesn’t look good! Let’s see if we can make this a little more politically correct, a little more acceptable. Let’s bring the candelabra and put it here in the door, and for God sake, take this altar thing and put it somewhere else!’ And when we get them all involved in this candelabra then we’ll sneak up on them... And you know that doesn’t work! What happens is the whole Cross is lost sight of, and pretty soon we’re just preaching the candelabra, or we just jump back there, grab The Ark of The Covenant and start preaching it! Listen - you can not approach the beginning except by way of the end. That’s the only way it works. He suffered it to be so. I reread Exodus and was thrilled when I saw this order - we must stay with the order. Then the Lord said, Now, what has been done here with regard to Israel? That which is First is the last thing they come to. That which is Last is the first thing they come to.

See - it’s The Cross! There’s no doubt about it; how that blood goes all the way through that order. That’s the way we must come. And then this order is found in the order of days. The order of The Sabbath is the end of the order of days. In the creation God established this order, and He used days. And something was done, and He said "and the evening and the morning were the first day." You know good and well we would say "morning and evening". And you know with God it would be. But He says in Genesis the evening and the morning were the first day, etc. all through the evening and the morning were the sixth day, and of course that’s when man was made, and that is the end of that creation. And then He says on the seventh day - and there is NO evening and NO morning in the Seventh Day! And I saw - Sabbath... I AM. I AM THE SABBATH! And I saw that the only way to get to that Seventh Day is by the order set forth in the six days, which is man, and that is again - end and beginning, because God never brings death out of life. He always brings life out of death; not darkness out of light, but light out of darkness. And therefore God suffered death to bring forth Life; suffered darkness to bring forth Light. And I saw that this is the same order! And the end of it is The Seventh Day, where the evening and the morning is NOT the order. It’s not there!

And then when God instituted that in the Law it was very clear. Now then the Seventh Day started with the evening and the morning, but because of that, it was never described as the other days were described. This was a day sanctified, hallowed, set aside. It was clearly a day that was taken out of the order of six days, and set aside unto itself. It is clear - God using a natural day to symbolize a Spiritual Day. The Sabbath was never observed because of the order of the six days: it was observed because of the declaration of God, and the stipulations that God gave of it, and it became clear that this was not an ordinary day. It had always been a Spiritual Day - a day that was outside the order of the six days. And even the Jews understood that. They could never really capture the character of that Seventh Day. The character of that Seventh Day is REST. So the Hebrews writer brings it over and says this is not a natural day, then another day wouldn’t have been spoken of. He wouldn’t have said, "There remaineth a rest." No, this day comes to its fulness IN CHRIST. But in order to get us there you have this order of the six days that He submitted Himself to.

You have this end... and beginning, end... and beginning. And it is in The Person of Him that the Divine Order is recaptured, and that is so beautifully set forth in Revelation. In relation to The Church the term "first" and "last" is legitimate, and it follows all the way through the last chapter of this book, showing the I AM’s relation. It’s like God has reversed it again - He’s brought it back! He is unto us now, who He has gathered unto Himself what He eternally is - First and Last! He’s just brought us right into that order because He was willing to suffer the reversal of it. And that is just tremendous. That’s the order - the Order of His Appearing: First - The End, then - The Beginning!