"HE TAKETH AWAY THE FIRST,

THAT HE MAY ESTABLISH THE SECOND"

BY BARBARA SAMUEL

Hebrews 10:9, "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will,

O God. He taketh away the first, that he

May establish the second."

THE WORK

In this series of meditations we will be considering The Finished Work of Christ by The Cross. We as Christians must come to understand what The Father has purposed and accomplished by sending His Son to this earth and dying the death of The Cross. But this is not to merely be an academic study of that Work, for now in us, the believer, This Finished Work is being worked in us, and there are very practical applications of this Work in our daily lives. So as we contemplate This Finished Work of The Cross, may our hearts be challenged to put aside our traditional understandings and doctrines, and seek to know the heart and purpose of God that was fulfilled by His Son dying The Death of The Cross.

We will look to the scriptures for a type of this work in Solomon’s Temple. 2 Chronicles 8:16, "Now all of the work of Solomon was prepared unto the day of the foundation of the house of the Lord, and until it was finished. So the house of the Lord was perfected." We know that Solomon was the beloved son of wisdom who built God’s permanent house where He would dwell. But Hebrews 2:6 tells us that WE are His house, so this work involves us; God now is to dwell in man, not in a building. But there are four words in the scripture that are pertinent to this work: prepared, foundation, finished and perfected. Let us see what the New Testament says regarding these same terms:

prepared: Ephesians 1:4 - God hath chosen us in Christ before

the world.

Vs.11 - being predestinated according to His purpose.

foundation: Ephesians 2:19-22 - Jesus Christ is the foundation...

Ye are builded together for a habitation of God.

1 Cor. 3:11 - No other foundation can be laid other

than Jesus Christ (but let us not forget that

Paul preached Christ and Him crucified).

finished : John 17:4 - Jesus said "I have finished the work thou

gave me to do."

John 19:30 - It is Finished.

perfected: Hebrews 12:12 - Looking unto Jesus, the author and

Finished (perfecter) of our faith.

Ephesians 4:13 - we come unto a perfect man, unto the

measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;

we grow up into Him.

Under the Old Covenant this was a physical house built by man’s hands, but today under the New Covenant, this is a spiritual house, not made with hands; describing a people in a relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Notice that HE is the predominant feature in this relationship: chosen in CHRIST, HE is the foundation, HE finished it, and HE is perfecting it unto the fulness of HIMSELF. This is the Church - not a physical building on a street corner, or even a people who meet in a building, no matter what our religious concept of Church is; but a people in whom God dwells by The Finished Work of The Cross.

So in terms of this house we see it was prepared in Christ, He is the foundation of it, He came and finished it, and is the perfection of it and we grow into the fulness of Him. And even as the world marveled at Solomon’s Temple, so the Church, the Body of Christ is to be in this world; that God would be worshiped and glorified in a people in whom He dwells. This Work was finished by His Son at The Cross, and now that Finished Work is being perfected in us, His House.

Jesus spoke of this Finished Work in John 17. Now He was ready to go to The Cross; now the Work was to be completed - by The Cross. It is important to note that His reference to finishing The Work is always made in regard to The Cross; miracles, healings etc. were never referred to as finishing The Father’s Work. The Finished Work always and only refers to The Cross. And except the Lord Jesus had gone to The Cross and died the death of The Cross as prepared of the Father, the Work would not have been Finished. But thank God that He did! This is an extremely important point to consider because The Cross was always the center and focal point of God’s plan for man’s redemption, and was the means by which this was accomplished. The Cross was not just an instrument employed by the Romans, but it was devised in the heart and plan of God to accomplish His Work here on this earth by the death, burial and resurrection of His Son. If He had not died the death of The Cross you and I would still be dead in our sins and trespasses and enemies of God. So let us seriously contemplate the truth of The Cross in light of God’s plan for man.

In John 17:4 Jesus says "I have finished (the Interlinear says "finishing") the work which thou gavest me to do." The word "finished" #5048 is Teleloo in the Greek and means to perfect, complete, to carry through completely, to accomplish, bring to an end; to bring to the goal proposed - not just that something stops, but that the goal has been accomplished. An additional meaning is to add what is yet lacking in order to render a thing full. This helps us to better understand that in Jesus’ earth walk up to this point something was lacking, and until that was added the proposed end could not be accomplished. What was lacking? The Cross - the miracles, and good works that Jesus performed didn’t accomplish God’s goal. It is only by The Cross (not two pieces of wood, but Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection) would God’s goal be accomplished and perfected. This is the will of the Father. Jesus had prayed in the garden that if there were any other way that the cup of death would be removed from Him, but He knew this was how the Father’s will would be done.

What is our understanding of how the Father’s will is to be accomplished and that His goal for us is reached? If the only way that goal was reached for Jesus was by The Cross, is there another way for us? If we want God’s work to be perfected in us, will it be by another way other than The Cross? You see Jesus prays to the Father in John 17 in accordance with the goal that was established in the Godhead from before the foundation of the world; and that was to bring many sons to glory. By His death, burial and resurrection we are brought into union with the Father; and that union is even as the Son’s union was with the Father, for they are One. Now by The Cross, we are to have that same relationship with the Son and The Father - not someday when we die and "go to heaven" - but now, while we are here on this earth.

Now we are to be the witness in the earth of Who God is and what Jesus has done. We (the Church, His Body) are the truth of Solomon’s Temple - a city set on a hill, that heavenly Jerusalem. Look in John 17 at the work in us and the purpose: verse 21 - that the world may believe the Father sent the Son. Verse 22 - we have His glory that we may be one as they are one. Verse 23 - that we may be made perfect (#5048, the same word = completed) in one, that the world may know God’s plan and love. Verse 26 - we are to be filled with God’s love - Christ in the Church.

This is not some place we are going to "when we die", but this is the relationship the Lord Jesus has brought us into by His death. He prayed this prayer, then immediately he goes and lays down His life. Remember - NO MAN TOOK HIS LIFE (John 10:17-18) He was given the power to lay down His life, and the power to take it again. He received this power from The Father because this was the means by which God accomplished His goal concerning mankind and this whole world system.

So on The Cross in John 19:30 Jesus said, "IT IS FINISHED." Note again that this term "finished" is only used in reference to The Cross. This word "finished" is #5055 Teleo, and means to perform, execute, to fulfil, to carry out a thing. But look at this additional meaning: to fulfil so that the thing done corresponds to what has been said. His death by The Cross fulfils everything that God had spoken! Truly His death on The Cross now takes on much greater significance and relevance as we realize that all of God’s dealings and sayings are now accomplished and brought to perfection by Christ and Him crucified. And we as believers must come to understand that Christ crucified is the plan, foundation, finishing and perfecting of God’s Work for us and in us. We must not look to any other place than The Cross!

ALL THINGS NOW ACCOMPLISHED

John 19:28 has some very important points for us to now consider. Let us keep in mind that this all pertains to The Cross. "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." How much greater The Cross becomes when we realize that this is the means by which ALL THINGS would be brought to their desired goal. ALL THINGS - consider that for a moment. This is not man’s words, but the Lord’s words, knowing the plan and purpose of God and that all things would be affected and brought to completion by The Cross. THE CROSS IS CENTRAL AND PARAMOUNT TO GOD’S PLAN: all things of the old end at The Cross, and all things of the New begin at The Cross. This is how great The Cross is! All Things come to their destined goal by The Cross! And notice that this occurred at The Cross; this is not what is going to happen, but what has been completed.

This thought has caused me to see that we can not relegate the teaching or preaching of The Cross to a season, as we do in our "Easter messages". The Cross affects all things - by it The Lord Jesus accomplished all things, fulfilling the scripture, and by The Cross working in me, all that He has accomplished will be perfected in me. We will never get beyond The Cross: it accomplished all things and all things are dealt with by The Cross. And we must never see The Cross as separate from the Lord Jesus Himself: The Cross was not something that He was forced to bear - He willingly became obedient to it to accomplish the Father’s Will in all things. It was His nature - as The Lamb obedient unto death that allowed Him to go to The Cross and accomplish the Father’s will there.

We will now begin to look at different aspects of the "all things" that were now accomplished (brought to its destined end) at and by The Cross. Firstly, let’s consider the creation - meaning man as Adam and the whole world or realm of Adam. The Bible speaks of this as "the first". God created Adam out of dirt and he was to represent God in the earth. Now contrary to our common way of thinking, when God said in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in our image..."that word "image" does not mean an exact duplicate. The word "image" is #6754 Tselem in the Hebrew and means "to shade, a resemblance, an illusion, a representative figure, an idol, nothingness." Adam was a type but without the true substance. This understanding is very crucial to much we have to consider because Adam was not God’s desired end, and what was perfected by The Work of The Cross is not a better Adam, but a different man altogether; one that would be an exact duplicate. It is because many of us do not understand this that there is much misunderstanding as to what The Cross has done, and what happened to Adam. Adam defined the whole first creation.

1 Corinthians 15 tells us that there is a first man Adam, who is a living soul, he is of the earth, he is natural, there is a glory to this first creation; but this first creation is not spiritual and can not inherit the kingdom of God. Romans 5:14 tells us that Adam was "a figure of him that was to come." We will find in our searching that the first is always the figure, or shadow of the substance of Truth which is to come. Now that One to come is the Lord Jesus Christ, the second, the spiritual, the heavenly. He is The One of whom Adam spoke, but was not. Now God had already determined Adam’s end: "In the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die." And we know that Adam ate of that tree and that sentence of death was passed upon him, and because of that sin and death passed upon all men. (Romans 5:12)

Now Adam died, and generations of mankind died, but that never brought mankind to that sure death - the end. Hebrews 9:27 says, "As it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered..." So when was the judgment on mankind carried out; when did Adam (mankind, the first creation) come to that sure death, to its end? Not as each man died, but at The Cross this judgment was carried out and all of the first creation was brought to its fulfillment, to an end, a sure death, and passed out of God’s plan. What does that mean? God is not dealing with the flesh man anymore, the soul man, with regard to His plan. Adam doesn’t represent God’s mind and that whole creation is put aside and a New Creation is brought in that will satisfy God’s plan. How is this done? By The Cross! Not by each man dying a physical death, but by The Work of Christ on The Cross accomplishing all things - His death bringing mankind to its determined end, and by His resurrection bringing forth a New Mankind that will satisfy the heart of God.

The Cross was foreshadowed in the scripture in the first creation. Look at Genesis 6 and see the assessment and judgment of all things. In verse 1 through 3 God says His Spirit will not always strive with man (man as mankind is not to be eternally with God because the first man is flesh), yet man will have a time. Verses 5 through 7 shows us man was wicked and God (not the devil!) determined to destroy man. But Noah (verse 8-9) found grace! Noah means "rest" and foreshadows a man who pleases God, which man is Christ. Verses 11 through 14 shows us that man (the flesh) corrupted the earth and God determined to bring an end to the flesh and destroy all of it. This is the judgment God determined for man.

God would establish His covenant with Noah (verses 17-18) but He would destroy all flesh and everything in the earth shall die. Can we see here the foreshadow of The Cross?: judgment of all flesh, who dies, but God established His covenant with another. So in Genesis 7: 15 through 23 we see this judgment by the flood: all flesh died... ONLY Noah remained alive. Now this flood actually occurred on the physical earth, but that rain never accomplished the end of mankind, but it foreshadowed the judgment that would take place at The Cross when Jesus became the last Adam. At the end of this saga with Noah God promised not to cut off flesh again by a flood, so He established a covenant with man and gave them the rainbow as the sign. And God kept that covenant (an understanding by which God dealt with man) with the first creation, and then gave them the promise through Abraham, and then gave them the Law through Moses.

And this remained for a time... UNTIL the fulness of time came. What fulness? When man came to his fulness and God determined his time was complete, God would bring man to his destined end. What did God do? Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." How did He do that? By The Cross! So what was God’s end and answer to the first creation? His Son - but what did His Son do? Romans 8:3-4, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." It was at The Cross where Jesus became sinful flesh and condemned sin in the flesh. Notice also that by The Cross the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us. It is The Cross that accomplishes all things!

It was at The Cross where Jesus became the first creation and brought it to its end: He died the death that God had appointed to man, but that man by himself could not accomplish. It took the Lamb of God to come in the likeness of sinful flesh to bring an end to that flesh man. But now what? Remember The Cross accomplishes all things: the first creation is dead by The Cross, but now a New Creation comes forth by The Cross. 2 Corinthians 5:14, "...If one died for all, then were all dead." Verse 17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (qualitatively new, different from the old - not earthy, natural, soulish, fleshly); old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." How? By The Cross! Notice "all things" - The Cross accomplishes that - all things old pass away; all things become new - in Christ. Now, verse 18, "And all things are of God..." This means all things here are out of God, proceed out from God. See, Adam was made by God, but now the New Creation is made of God. Before we were in another (Adam), but now by The Cross we are separated from that and now those who live, live only by God and in Him. We have been reconciled to God by Jesus Christ because by The Cross the first flesh creation that was an enemy of God has been brought to an end, and a New Creation in Christ who is one with God has come forth. It is The Cross that has accomplished all things concerning creation: the first has passed away and now all things are new. Let us ask the Lord to show us the absoluteness of The Cross, and allow that to work in our hearts so that we live as that New Creation that Christ has brought forth by His Cross.

A NEW CREATION

So as we are contemplating The Finished Work of Christ by His death, burial and resurrection we see that the first creation - Adam and that whole realm has come to its destined end - death. And the scripture in 2 Corinthians 5 now speaks of those of us who live - in Christ. In Him we are a New Creature: old things are passed away and now - by Him and in Him, all things are become new. There are several things to consider here: when will this be? In the future - when we die and then "go to heaven"? No - the scripture declares this to be so NOW - "they are passed away and they are become new. How? By His death! And when we are baptized into His death when we believe, this NOW becomes true for us. But is it true in us?

Now the Lord has really challenged me on this point. The Lord spoke into my heart that ‘your lives are making Me a liar!’ We as Christians read the scripture and even quote this scripture about being a New Creature - but we don’t live our lives in the reality of that. Most of us live as an old creation: ‘on our way to heaven’ or ‘trying to make it in to heaven’. We live unto ourselves, in our own understanding, letting the flesh control us and the devil torment us every day - not as the New Creation that we now are in Christ: seated in heavenly places with Him, where the flesh and the devil have no place. My heart is saddened because most of us are ignorant of The Finished Work that The Cross has done, and we keep expecting God to do something to get us out of our troubles! And The Word says that at The Cross He has done a Finished Work and has taken us out of one creation and brought us into a New Creation as One with Himself.

So - what is missing that causes us to live as the old creation even though we now are a New Creation in Christ? The Cross accomplished that, and now the full work of The Cross must take place in us; not just removing my sins, but removing me - my life, my flesh, my righteousness, my religion, etc. Paul said that everything that was gain to me I counted lost...that I may win Christ. Sooner or later we as Christians must come to see that The Cross makes a clear and sharp division - and nothing - not one thing of the old makes it past The Cross! I want to reemphasize that - NOTHING OF THE OLD MAKES IT PAST THE CROSS: because our carnal understanding wants to make allowances for our flesh and we assume that God will do likewise. But God judged the flesh - and by The Cross passed sentence upon it, and brought it to its death. And now - in the New, in Christ - there is nothing of the old! This is not man’s judgment, it is God’s, and it does not change because of our social climate or our desires. God said an eternal No! to the first creation and first man, and He will not change that judgment.

You may say that is too hard, but friends, we are faced with the reality of The Cross. The Cross of Christ is not something that is going to happen, and we can speculate on what that will mean. No - Jesus came and died on that Cross, and now we are faced with the reality of what His death has done. Our vain doctrines or ignorant rhetoric is not going to change what He has already accomplished by His Cross. We now need to set our hearts upon learning what The Finished Work has done and allowing that Work to be perfected in us. How many of us can say - in truth - by the evidence of our daily lives..."I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me..."? We shrink away from The Cross and the Work of The Cross in us, which only shows us how much of the flesh life of the old creation we still cling to - for The Cross will bring an end to the old, the flesh man.

The Cross requires an absolute Work in us - a clear and clean division, and that is so very painful to the man of flesh. We see this is God’s dealings with Abram in Genesis 12:1,2: "GET OUT - of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house..."

Immediately we see in this type what The Cross would do: you leave the life you knew by natural birth, who you are in the flesh and all the earthly links, even our religious traditions. But you must leave one and go into another. To us this takes place in our hearts. Christ has taken us out of the old and brought us into the New, but this new land is one that has to be revealed in you. This new land can not be experienced through the natural senses, but is that eternal, living relationship of Oneness with God in Christ. But there is a separation from all of the old that is painful, and we know from Genesis that Abram had trouble with this: he took his relatives and his old substance with him, he took his old understanding with him, and through God’s dealings with Abram you see a continual putting away of the old and gradually bringing Abraham on to new ground and understanding. We won’t proceed further with this thought, but you can see this in the testimony of the scripture. Suffice it to say that this is a foreshadowing of The Cross: the old passing away and The Lord making all things new - new name, new son, new mind, new obedience - New Life! With Abraham we see a continual putting away of the old and finally the covenant is established with him - after he was obedient in the matter of the death of his beloved son. What does that say to us about our obedience to the death of The Cross of Christ?

Now these were all figures of The Cross, and it was real in those people’s lives, but now - today - we are living not in the foreshadow of The Cross - but in the shadow of it. Christ has gone to The Cross and there has accomplished all that the scriptures foreshadowed. But are we walking in the reality of what The Cross has accomplished? That is the question for us today.

Contrast if you will Abraham with the Apostle Paul. The same things were dealt with, but Paul walked in the reality of The Finished Work of The Cross: the old are passed away and now all things are new! Galatians 1:15 - "But when it pleased God, who separated me from (Work of The Cross) my mother’s womb (old life, old religion) to reveal His Son in me...I conferred not with flesh and blood..." Paul left his old life! Philippians 3:3-8 - "...no confidence in the flesh..." Paul left his religious self, righteous self. "I count all things (The Cross deals with "all things") but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ." Philippians 4:11-13: "I have learned in whatever state I am to be content... (Paul lived in a New Creation, as a New Creation - not dictated by the old)...I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." Paul lived in the reality of The Cross and that worked in him - mightily! Philippians 1:21: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Paul wasn’t waiting to die and go be with Jesus, Paul came to understand that by The Cross, Paul was dead and Christ now was his life! Galatians 2:20 - " I am crucified with Christ...the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Paul constantly drew upon the knowledge and power of The Cross. To him it was the power and the gospel - CHRIST CRUCIFIED. Is that the gospel that we are preaching in the Church today? Or is it a gospel that gets things for me, that exalts the flesh and allows me to live my own life rather than allowing The Cross to be preeminent in everything? Could it be that the lack of proper teaching of The Cross is the reason there is so little power in the Church today? Remember, God’s answer to all things is The Cross. Can we say today as Paul: Galatians 6:14-15, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST (The Finished Work), by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision (not the works of the flesh), but a New Creature."

May God open the eyes of our understanding that we today don’t live as those who were under the Old Testament promises and shadows of things to come, but rather that we live here on this earth in the reality that HE HAS COME, and by His death, and burial all things of that first creation are finished; and in His resurrection He has brought forth a New Creation. It is a Finished Work!

ONE MAN - SIN - DEATH

We are continuing to consider the first creation that came to its destined end by The Cross. Romans 5:12, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." The first creation can be summed up as one man, sin and death. And God’s answer to that was One Man - to deal with the first man, sin and death. Jesus didn’t just come to take care of sins: He came to deal with the first man, sin and death. When we see this we realize the greatness of The Cross! Verse 15-17, "But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Death reigned by one - Adam; but The Cross gets rid of that one. Now those who receive grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life (not death) by One - Jesus Christ - not you or me. Notice the use of "Jesus Christ" which is the Lord’s name in incarnation, as man to die.

Verse 19: "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." This was accomplished by The Cross: the disobedience of one making many sinners was dealt with by the obedience of One - Jesus who was obedient unto the death of The Cross, making many righteous. It is by The Cross of Christ that all of this first creation was dealt with - Adam, sin and death, and The Cross is still the vehicle God uses today in dealing with the first creation - man, sin and death.

Verse 20 says "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound..." So we want to continue in the scripture to see how God dealt with man in the first creation - as Adam, the flesh man, sinful man who was under the appointment of death. In that first creation in the Old Testament scriptures we have shadows or types of The Cross. God dealt with man, but man was never changed from his condition. God’s dealings never brought life, but spoke of it as a testimony of what would come. The scripture was always foreshadowing Christ and The Cross as God’s means of dealing ultimately with man, sin and death. We will make a few short references here, but there are many more in the scripture that point to The Cross.

The first reference is in Genesis 3 where God speaks of the seed that will come and bruise the head of the serpent. We know that it was at The Cross where Jesus spoiled principalities and won the victory over the devil, sin and death. In Genesis 4 we have Cain and Abel and the blood offering versus the fruit offering. Here we see that only the blood offering was accepted by God - there had to be a death. In Genesis 6 when God dealt with Noah in the building of the ark, man and the whole world was destroyed by the flood, and only what was in the ark was saved. In Genesis 12 God begins to deal with Abram and calls him out of his land to go into a new land. Abram builds an altar which is the place of sacrifice, and later God gives Abram circumcision, the cutting away of the flesh as the sign of the covenant He will establish with them. And then in the book of Exodus the children of Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt by the blood of the lamb slain. All these are foreshadows of The Cross.

So God has called a people out of the first creation unto Himself, and He begins to deal with them as His people. This foreshadows the Church, and in order to deal with them He makes His covenant with them formal by giving them the Law with its commandments, sacrifices, feasts, priests, tabernacle, etc. This Covenant is an understanding of how God relates to them as His people and how His people relate to Him. But notice this - God’s Covenant in the Old Testament, before Christ, was designed because man was a flesh creature, born in sin. The law was given to deal with man’s sin, but could not change man’s condition, and the law ultimately brought man to death - not life. They were under the law of sin and death. The first creation needed a first covenant, dealing with its earthliness and sin, and God could only deal with them in this condition through blood sacrifices that were made to Him continually.

So the first creation was given a first covenant (the old creation an old covenant), but that covenant would be accomplished and done away by The Cross. The Law was needful because of the condition of man, but that was not God’s end. Hebrews 3:5 says "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..." Before The Cross all is a testimony of what Christ would come and do. But now Christ comes and Romans 10:4 says, " For Christ is the end (the fulfillment) of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." And how did He fulfil the law for righteousness? By The Cross - He received the judgment of man’s sin and died that death, fulfilling God’s demands according to the law. Now, to those that believe on what His Cross has done they are accounted righteous.

So the first creation was not only brought to an end by The Cross, but also the old covenant by which God dealt with man as sinful and fleshly. Adam dies - now, A NEW CREATION NEEDS A NEW COVENANT! You can’t put new wine in old wine skins; the new wine will burst the old skins, and that’s what the work of the Holy Spirit in us does - removes all of the old because the old cannot contain the New Covenant. And the New Covenant is not like the old covenant. Now as The New Creature in Christ, the old man, sin and death have no place: the old things are passed away and He has made all things new. Now God’s dealings are in Christ - not as in Adam.

This is all done by Christ and The Cross. Read the comparison between the first covenant and the New Covenant in the book of Hebrews; especially in chapter 8:6 to the end tells us that Christ by His Cross brings a better covenant with better promises, and that the old is ready to vanish away. The Truth of The Cross has done away with the old covenant - now it must be taken away from our hearts and ways. The first of God’s dealings in the first creation were patterns and symbols, they were God dealing with man in sin: the law is outside of man, trying to control his flesh, but it is unable to do so. The Cross brings the man of sin to death, and brings forth a New Man who is alive to God and this New Man has the law written inwardly. (Reference 6: it is done by our being baptized into His death, so that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.)

Since The Cross brings an end to the first man Adam and that flesh creation in sin, it also brings an end to the old covenant that God needed to deal with man in that condition, and that always required blood sacrifice for sin. Hebrews 10 tells us that Jesus came and He offered ONE sacrifice for sins - FOREVER - BY THE OFFERING OF His body ONCE FOR ALL. (Verses 10-15) Now the Lord makes a New Covenant with them whereby He puts His laws into their hearts (verse 17: " And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." Why? Because by His Cross He has done away with the man who was in sin, and now the New Creation is released from that bondage, as though they had never committed sin, because at The Cross Christ did a Finished Work. Now there is no more need for sacrifice for sin, because Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on The Cross brought an end to that need. Now (verse 19) WE HAVE BOLDNESS TO ENTER INTO THE HOLIEST BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS!

His Cross did a Finished Work! But so many of us in Christ still cling to the old covenant with its laws and carnal commandments, and my question is - why? Why hold on to the shadows and the substitutes when THE TRUTH IS COME? Why do we want to be a New Creation but want God to deal with us as an old creation? And let’s understand that you can’t pick apart the law and try to keep part of it while you let part of it pass away: all old things are passed away, and He makes all things new. Christ by His death, burial and resurrection has brought the old creature and the old covenant to an end - when will we truly begin to walk in the New Covenant of His Life? Romans 8:2: "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." The Cross says God dealt with the old creation and brought it to its appointed end. Now God’s dealings with you in Christ are as that New Creation under the New Covenant - now it is all His grace, not our vain attempt at keeping a law of carnal commandments. Romans 7:4-6 says "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ: that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But NOW we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Notice here there is a contrast between the first: the law, flesh and death, oldness of the letter; and the second: newness of Spirit and fruit unto God.

The Cross is what brought the end to the first and brought in the second. And The Cross working in us is what is going to make the separation for us. The old will only appear old to us when we see the Newness of The New Man and our New Life in Him - then old things pass away and He makes all things New. May God open our eyes to behold Him in the Truth of His Cross so that we can truly walk in the Newness of His Life.

Remember: The old creation had an old covenant - the law of sin and death. The New Creation has a New Covenant - the law of Life in Christ Jesus!

I COME...

We are continuing to speak of the "all things" that were accomplished by Christ by The Cross, and our emphasis is on the word "FINISHED". THE CROSS IS A FINISHED WORK, but most Christians haven’t come to that understanding yet; they are "waiting" for God to do something, or waiting to die - and then it will be so. And that’s sad because they are trying to live and find their relationship with God in a realm that God has already dealt with by The Cross and has finished with. As previously stated, God deals with us now not in the realm of flesh, sin and death; but now He deals with us in Life - as those who only live in Christ.

Now let’s look at Hebrews 10:9, "Then said he, Lo I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." And we must come to see that it is The Cross (Christ’s death, burial and resurrection) that separates the two - the first and the second. Firstly this scripture says, " I come." This is the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, coming into this first realm and identifying Himself with this first creation. Now His coming was for one purpose - to do God’s will. The first creation never accomplished God will; it fell short of the glory of God. But now the Lord Jesus comes to accomplish what the first creation could not. And The Cross was the means by which God’s will would be done. We’ve already stated that The Cross was central to accomplishing God’s will; without The Cross God’s will for mankind would not have been done.

"HE taketh away...HE establishes..." This Work is done only by Christ, and He by His Cross was the only One who could do it! We as Christians must come to see that it is not what we do for Him, but what He has already done! The first part of His coming is to take away - to kill it, to put to death, to abolish it. This is not just putting something on the side for a time so that you can have it later; but HIS taking away does away with it, and renders it useless. This is the absoluteness of The Cross to which we must come. When Christ by His Cross took away the first, God no longer had any use for it, and in His mind it is abolished and God will not go back to that again.

The word "that" denotes purpose. Why does He take away the first? That He may establish the second. He doesn’t take away just for the sake of taking away; but His purpose is to establish something else. Now this has important ramifications for us in understanding the Lord’s dealings with us. See, we don’t mind if He takes away the bad parts of me, but really in our heart we want to remain as we are - only better! But this is not God’s will. There is a taking away of one so that an entirely different other can be established. And that word "establish" means to cause or make to stand, to place, to set, to cause a person or thing to keep its place, to continue safe and sound. Utilizing this definition we can see why so many Christians are so unstable. It is only by the taking away of the first that the second can be established - and you can only stand in the second, because Christ has established that to stand, and this is what He brings forth in His Resurrection!

Notice also that the second comes afterward, but it is not the same as the first. It is because we try to understand this with our carnal mind that we think they are the same, but Biblically they are not. 1 Corinthians 15 clearly establishes the difference between the two. So the first precedes the second, but is not the same, and the first was never meant to be established by God. What is the first? It is the first creation, flesh, earthy, temporal, known by the senses; it is identified as man, sin and death; and associated with the first is a whole order by which God dealt with this man. This order was a first covenant initiated by God consisting of the law, sacrifices, an earthly tabernacle, man’s service, etc. What is the second? The second is another realm, it is another creation, different from the first; not earthy, everlasting, and we experience it by faith rather than by senses, and it is identified as Christ - all and in all.

Now look at the marvel of The Cross: it takes away and it also establishes; it brings death and it also brings life! This is the mystery of God, that God doesn’t need two instruments: THE CROSS abolishes the whole system of the first, and establishes the second which is in Truth, reality and is everlasting. THE CROSS ACCOMPLISHES ALL THINGS! The first spoke of the second: it was a testimony of what would come, but the first was a pattern and had no substance.

This understanding is one to which we need to take serious heed, because Christians today are trying to find substance in the first, in the pattern; and they are having a hard time of it. And this is because God’s will never was to establish the first - but the second. We need to search the scripture to see the pattern in the first, but then realize it can only be fulfilled in the second, and that second is Christ Himself! Hebrews 8:5 says the priests and the tabernacle (the whole order of the first) were the example and shadow of heavenly things. Hebrews 10:1 says the law had a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things. And the law, summing up all of the first, can never make those who sacrifice that way perfect. THE FIRST NEVER BRINGS MAN TO THE FULL THOUGHT OF GOD! Colossians 2:16 and 17 tells us to let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of holy days, or of sabbath days (this is all of the first order), which are a shadow of things to come (of those sure things that will certainly come); but the body, (substance, truth) is CHRIST! The first all spoke of Him, but did not have any substance, because the substance is only in Him. So Christ comes and fulfills the pattern and He abolishes the pattern. Why? BECAUSE THE TRUTH HAS COME! And the Truth is the unveiled reality of God’s Will seen by The Cross. Now when we come to that Truth by the Work of His Cross, the shadows of the first will be taken away in us, and He will establish The Truth of the second - His Life in us! It is all fulfilled at The Cross!

We can clearly see this in Hebrews 10:1-10. The law never brought to perfection because it never took away the conscience of sins; and the blood of bulls and goats, that was the law, could not do it. But Jesus coming - to die - does! Verse 14, "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Verses 15-18 speak of the New Covenant God will make "after those days" - when those days are "taken away". Now God’s dealing with sin in the first is finished, and now His law is not in shadow, written in stone outside of us, but now His law is written in our hearts because the flesh man of sin has died, and the New Creation has received God’s will as his very life. The first order, the first knowing of God has changed "after those days" - after The Cross, but the question now for us is - has that order left our hearts, our understanding?

You see, there is a glory to the first, but the first never brought life. 2 Corinthians 3 gives us a comparison of the first and second ministrations: the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. And this chapter talks about a glory that is done away, and a glory that excells and remains. We will talk more about this in the next sharing, but here we need to take note that verse 14 says that "the vail is done away in Christ." In the first ministration God dealt with man through a vail, but this scripture says it was the ministration of death. Christ by His death rent that vail (Matthew 27:51). The old has been done away, but that vail still remains upon our hearts so that we are still kept from beholding the true glory, which was the situation in the temple before Christ died. And that is the situation in many of us today; we are still looking for the glory of the first and are not coming into the greater glory, the Spirit of the Lord, that is liberty; but are still held in the bondage of the first, which is unto death. Are we still - in our hearts clinging to the first system, the fleshly knowledge of God in types and shadows?

Do you remember in Haggai 2 after the Babylonian captivity a remnant came back to Jerusalem to build the city and the temple. They looked at the restored temple with natural eyes and were disappointed that it didn’t compare to the first. But Haggai prophesies of a greater glory - not a greater physical building - but a GREATER GLORY! God would fill this latter house with Himself - God would live in a people, not a building, and this glory would not fade away. This is the spiritual House that we are - and Christ in us is that Glory - the second that He has established forever! It was all summed and finished by His Cross.

"I COME..." Jesus in John 2 goes into the temple, which represents the whole first system. The buildings and priestly traditions are beautiful, but man had polluted it. So HE cleansed the temple and speaks of bringing it to an end. Verse 19-22, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up...But he spake of the temple of his body." His coming fulfilled what that temple spoke of, so He fulfills it and brings it to an end - in His death. Now by The Cross (three days: death, burial and resurrection) He raises up another - a New, a different, more glorious temple - who we are, the Church, His Body! The second is different, more glorious, and shall not be done away. HE takes away the first, that HE may establish the second. The question for us is: which glory are you and I looking for? The glory that fades, or the one that remains?

It is The Cross that will make that separation in you!

MORE GLORIOUS

We are considering the greatness of The Cross where by Christ’s death, burial and resurrection "all things" were now accomplished (completed). THE CROSS IS A FINISHED WORK. We are finding that the term "all things" is a tremendous term, and we are learning that "all things" of the first creation are taken away by The Cross, and "all things" of the second, New Creation are established in Christ, by The Cross. This is God’s Will. Ephesians 1:9-11 says, "...That in the dispensation (administration) of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him...(we) being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will..." And it is by The Cross that all things come to their fulness, and all things are now summed up in Christ.

We want to graphically depict the difference between the first and the second, because we must come to see that they are two different realms. The Lord showed me this is a very simple diagram of "the first" being a circle - then The Cross - and then "the second" being a square. They are NOT the same, and The Cross separates the two. But because of The Cross, the first does not pass over into the second (we must come to comprehend this!), but comes to an end at The Cross and by The Cross. Now, by The Cross, the second comes forth and remains, but it is another realm altogether different from the first. This is extremely important because in our ignorance, we are trying to bring aspects of the first through The Cross (for example, I’m saved, but I still live MY life, dictated by the flesh), and we’re finding that we’re having problems. And what about most Christians concept of heaven? Isn’t it still just earthly things elevated to an eternal status - but without the bad? But The Truth of The Cross says NO! To that understanding: the old ends at The Cross, and by The Cross all things are New and of an entirely different nature.

This gets extremely important and practical, because without The Cross making the separation we continue to lean on our own understanding, and fail to walk in the fulness of our New Life in Christ. For instance, take the Throne of God. How many Christians firmly believe that God sits on a big chair somewhere in heaven; but His rule and authority (of which the Throne speaks) is sadly lacking in their daily lives? Should we as believers be seeking a golden chair, or His reign in our hearts day by day? That’s what I mean about trying to take the first past The Cross into the second.

We must come to see that all of the first, and all that was in the first was a pattern of what would come. In the first creation God called out a people unto Himself and He put in place a system to deal with them. God instituted Judaism, the old covenant and the old order because this was the old man; but this was all the pattern and shadow of what Christ by His Cross would come and do. The first was all of God and it was summed up in the law and the visible functionings in the Temple, but remember this was all in the first, as the first, and was not meant to remain. 2 Corinthians 3:6-18 tells us that there was a glory to this, but this glory was to be done away. Verse 7, "But if the ministration of death (under the first this was unto 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 shalt not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?" Verse 9 says there was glory in the ministration of condemnation (the first, the law, God far off, hidden), but the ministration of righteousness (the second, grace, God made nigh) exceeds in glory! And it is by reason of the glory that excelleth (the second, The Truth - Christ) that the first appears to have no glory. (Verse 10) When the second is revealed, the first glory fades away. Why? Because that glory, that first knowing of God through types and shadows, through physical implements and religious rituals was never meant to remain. Verse 11, "For if that which is done away (how? By The Cross)was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." The glory of the second that came forth and is established by Christ through The Cross is more glorious, and it shall remain because it is Him - not types and shadows, but in Spirit and Truth!

What does this say to us? We generally first come to know the Lord in this first way - in religious rituals, feast days and things that speak of Him, but are not Him. It is a knowing in the flesh and by the flesh. And there is a glory to that, but God would bring us as believers to a greater glory - a glory that will not fade, and is not dependent upon my works, or upon how my flesh feels, because this is now the second. And it is when the heart turns (verse 16) to the Lord and He is revealed as the second, in Spirit and Truth, then we behold Him with an open face and we are changed (verse 18) into the same image. This is more glorious than any religious idol man can devise!

The key to this understanding is in 2 Corinthians 4:18, "...for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The first realm is the realm of the temporal - it is only for a time and can be experienced by the senses. But the second realm is the realm of things that are not seen or experienced by the senses, but nevertheless are eternal, everlasting - spiritual. The temporal things (first) spoke of eternal, spiritual things and had a glory, but the spiritual, eternal (second) are more glorious! This is so important to see because many Christians today are looking for eternal things in the temporal, and they try to bring the temporal things into the eternal: that’s what most of our concepts of heaven are. The temporal are not in the eternal - but something more glorious is!

Let’s think briefly about God’s house, His dwelling place. In the old covenant the centerpiece of the law was the temple, which certainly was glorious, but was that building to be eternal? God’s Word tells us what He had in mind. Exodus 15:17, " Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, o Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands established." His Hands have established this sanctuary. See, before The Cross this was a physical building, but it was a pattern of the heavenly. It was glorious in type, but now the more glorious is established by The Cross, and this is not made of wood or bricks, but (Ephesians 2:10) "Ye are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." But yet today, how many Christians are "cemented" to a building, in the understanding that this is Church and we go there to meet God?

You see the pattern had a glory, but man still desecrated the temple. He was religious outwardly and went through the prescribed rituals, but a Holy God could not live where sinful man was. That’s why the temple was never without the blood of sacrifice. Even Solomon at the consecration of his temple (1 Kings 8) declared that heaven can’t contain God, how can He live on earth in a house that I built? The answer is - He can’t! But Solomon’s temple was a type of that house He could build - a more glorious House because A GREATER THAN SOLOMON WOULD COME!

And God knows the difference between the first and second, even if we don’t. We just fool ourselves into believing He doesn’t. In Ezekiel 43:7-12 is the description of the glory filling the temple, God reveals that He will not dwell in "religion". Israel, just like our religious selves set "their" thresholds by "His" thresholds, and "their" posts by "His" posts with a form of godliness, but that just creates a wall between us and God, and by it His holy name has been defiled. Verse 9 says "Now let them put away their whoredoms...and I will dwell in the midst of them forever." And "put away" is a foreshadowing of The Cross, and "our" religious traditions and abominations can only be put away by His Cross bringing an end in me to all of that first realm. Then God will dwell in the midst of them forever. This is NOT in a building, but in a people. Now it’s not "our" measure, but the measure is CHRIST, The New Creation, The Second, which is holy - this is where God can dwell!

This is more glorious - and it is forever. The old covenant never brought perfection - man is still man and he defiles that temple. But the New Covenant brings a new relationship by The Cross. The second is not a building we build, where we go on special days and where we perform religious rituals: but now we are the place where God dwells, where He is worshiped. This place is in Christ - a New Creation reconciled to God - holy, eternally one with Him. How? By The Cross! Look at the more glorious. 2 Corinthians 6:16, "Ye are (Not going to be) the temple of the Living God (not in the first which was the ministration of death, but the second, the ministration of righteousness and life)...I will dwell in them, and walk in them." God now lives His Life in us - the second, the New Creation, in Christ. Now you don’t "go to" church; now you are the Church, His Body, the fulness of Him that He fills.

Now, by The Cross, in the second He is not building with bricks and wood, but He is fitly framing lively stones into a holy habitation for Himself. Friends, the more glorious is not coming - IT IS NOW COME - by Christ, by The Cross He has done away with the first glory and established the more glorious! Revelation 21:1-3 speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem... the tabernacle of God is with men, and verse 22 tells us there is no temple there (no type, no shadow, nothing of the earthly, temporal realm) for the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple of it!

May God deal with our hearts: we can worship God in the flesh, by the flesh, in patterns and types, but The Cross says God has already done away with that. Now let us allow The Cross to bring us to the more glorious where we can worship Him in Spirit and in Truth!

COMING FROM THE GLORIOUS TO THE MORE GLORIOUS

We want to continue with the thought of coming from the glorious to the more glorious; and this involves coming from the first to the second, from that which passes away to that which remains. And this is all done by The Cross. Christ accomplished this to the satisfaction of The Father, and now this must be worked in us.

Hebrews 1:1-2, "God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath (in the end of those days) spoken unto us (in Son), whom he hath appointed heir of all things..." God spoke in the past time in a certain way, and it all spoke of what was to come. After those days, when those days are done, He has spoken IN SON: The One who was to come - has come! And He fulfills all that was spoken before, and all the ways God spoke before. Do you notice a change: from the first to the second? When did those times pass? At The Cross. Now, God only speaks in Son, and the emphasis now is on the Truth of what His Son has done. Read through the chapter to see this. Notice that The Son is heir of all things (verse 2). Notice also verse 11 and 12 - the first shall perish and grow old, but the second, The Son is the same and remains!

It is The Cross that brings a change in God’s dealings with man: God’s first dealings come to an end, and now everything is summed up in Christ. It is important that we come to see clearly the difference between the first and the second - they are different realms, and different dealings, and only the second has been ordained of God to remain. 1 Corinthians 15:45-50 establishes the principle for us, and it is all fulfilled by The Cross. The first is natural and afterward that which is spiritual. After the first dies - then the spiritual comes forth. But look at verse 47: the first man is of the earth, but the second man is THE LORD FROM HEAVEN. The second man is altogether different from the first, and comes forth in Christ in the resurrection - dead to the first and alive to God. Verse 49: we must now bear the image of the heavenly, but contrary to our carnal thinking, this is not "me in heaven", but we bear the image of Christ! Why? Because (verse 50) flesh and blood (the first) can not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

When are we as Christians really going to comprehend that? We believe we’ll "go to heaven", but still go as I am in this first creation, but I’ll just leave all the "bad stuff" here. And we preach that as glory! I’m telling you there is something more glorious than that, if we would only ask God to open our eyes to it! Remember what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." But you can only truly be born of the Spirit, of the second when you die to the flesh, to the first even while your flesh body still functions upon this earth. And this is what The Cross accomplishes.

We see this principle of the first and the second over and over in the scriptures: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Saul and David, even Saul and Paul. Always the first was natural and the second was spiritual. And we see that God always established the second in His purpose - not the first. May the Lord help us to see that these "stories" are patterns of what by The Cross Christ would do.

So there is a glory to the first, but it is only natural man trying to serve God and keep His commandments. Look at 1 Peter 1:23-25. Man as Adam is not God’s end, that’s why He brings us into the second. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible (Christ), by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away; But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever." Sooner or later we in our hearts are going to have to correctly assign the scriptural terms of "not" and "but" to the first and the second. And God’s judgment of the first is "not", and the second is "but Christ." May the Lord plant that Truth firmly in our hearts so that we don’t try to find our lives in the "not", "But in Christ". This is more glorious than the first, and it will remain. The second is of a different realm that can not fall away, is not corruptible; it is secure in Christ! HE taketh away the first that HE may establish the second.

And one other thought about the glorious and the more glorious, the first and the second; and this is regarding God’s house, His dwelling place. There are Christians today who are worrying about what kind of a house "they will live in when they get to heaven". But God is NOW functioning in another realm, in a House that He is building, not made with hands. God’s first house was in the natural realm. Hebrews 3:1-6, but that first house was a testimony of what would come. Verse 3, "For this man (Christ Jesus) was counted worthy of more glory than Moses..." Verse 5, "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." We are now that house - by Christ. The more glorious house is God dwelling in a people and filling them with Himself!

Remember what Jesus told His disciples before The Cross in John 14:23? "...If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." We become the place of His dwelling, His rest! When will we come to the reality of this most glorious truth? It was done by His Cross, and now the continual work of The Cross brings us to manifest that in the earth: all of the first being taken away, allowing God to be all in us as the second. We’ve quoted 2 Corinthians 6:16 previously regarding us being the temple of the living God, and God dwelling in us and walking in us as our God. But look at the Work of The Cross in verse 17 and 18, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate (The Cross always separates - divides asunder the soul and the spirit), saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.(Look back to verse 14-15 - unrighteousness, darkness, idols) And I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." Now our relationship with the Father is as a son; it is MORE GLORIOUS than our vain idolatry, it is eternal and it is all fulfilled in Christ by His Cross! May the Lord bring us from the glorious to the More Glorious!

SET YOUR HEART

We have been talking about comprehending what The Finished Work of Christ by The Cross has done, and allowing that to be worked in us; bringing us from the shadows and types that pointed to His coming to the reality that HE HAS COME and finished the Work The Father gave Him to do.

Everything in the scripture from Genesis to Malachi was a testimony of Jesus’ coming, His Work and the effects of it on mankind and the world. But now, since Jesus came, died and rose, we who are The Church are to be a witness of His coming. "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." Jesus said. The testimony pointed to The Cross; the witness comes out of The Cross. The testimony is the types and shadows; the witness is the substance - Christ first, then His Body a witness of that Finished Work in Spirit and Truth. We are to bear witness (in our lives) that He has come, done His Work by The Cross and now lives in His Body. The testimony was in the natural, but spoke of heavenly, spiritual things that were to come. Now by The Cross, the reality of the spiritual is to be manifested, witnessed in the earth - by us. He has come anew - different, in the second, as the second, in Spirit, living in His people. And the purpose of The Church remaining in the earth is to be the witness of that.

Now in the reality of The Cross, we must set our hearts upon living and finding our life in the spiritual, the second, the more glorious; not in the earthly, fleshly realm, which passed away by The Cross, but in the heavenly - in Christ. Our carnal understanding wants to make that a place, but it is a relationship: being IN CHRIST. We now live in the reality of The Cross, and that makes a big difference. We are not as Old Testament saints who are waiting for His coming, even though most of us act like we are. But now there is a dealing in our hearts to determine what we are seeking and what we are really looking for. Don’t forget 2 Corinthians 3:16 says, "Nevertheless when it (the heart) shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." Then - we can see clearly the glory of the Lord, and are changed into His image.

But let us look in the testimony at Abraham’s heart. Although God dealt with Abraham in the earthy realm, it was all speaking of a more glorious, spiritual truths. Hebrews 11:8-10, "By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after (after he left the old) receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went." Natural man’s eyes and understanding could not see this place, for it required the Lord revealing Himself to be that land. But look at Abraham’s heart: "He looked for a city which hath foundations (established), whose builder and maker is God." This is not an earthly city. Now, if Abraham who lived as the testimony didn’t look for an earthly city, why are we who live in the reality of the witness looking for one?

Verse 13 of Hebrews 11 declares they died in faith, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Isn’t this what we should be - in this world but not of this world; the witness is in this world, but not of the world. Now can we see why our "witness" is so weak? We in the Church do things just like the world, rather than looking to witness a different, heavenly life to the world. Verse 16, "They desire a better country, that is an heavenly..." when will we - in our hearts come to the realization that the heavenly is better? Now, because of their desire, "God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city." This is not a physical place; this is IN CHRIST; the place that God hath prepared, the better place to dwell. How do we get there? By The Cross!

As I said before, we are not like those Old Testament saints because by Christ we are NOT come to the earthy. Hebrews 12:22-24 says "But ye are come (by The Cross) unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem...and to the spirits of just men made perfect (all things completed unto God’s end) and to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than of Abel." YOU ARE COME TO THE MORE GLORIOUS! But what are you looking for? Remember The Cross says the first passes away - it is the flesh, earthy, temporal; and the second is established - it is spirit, heavenly, eternal. Our attempts to hold on to the first are made vain by The Truth of The Cross! May the Lord open our eyes to see this, and deal with our hearts that we set our affections on the Truth of the heavenly, and not on the earthy. (Reference Colossians 3:1-3)

This understanding has important practical applications in our daily living. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, " For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment (the first is only for a time), worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Notice verse 18 says "while we look". This is not a physical looking, but a gaze of the heart, knowing the difference between the natural, passing realm and the eternal, more glorious realm. Now we read that, but how is that worked in us? Verse 10, "Always bearing about the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that (the purpose) the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." The Cross is not a sermon that we preach, but the reality of the nature of The Person of Jesus that we are to bear. The Cross is always the answer to all things! "For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." This is the witness - His Life being manifest in our mortal flesh! This is not me talking about what will happen "some day when I die", but me reckoning myself dead daily so that He can live His Life in me! "So then death worketh in us, but life in you." His death works His Life in us.

" For we which live..." Verse 11. So we have life in Christ; but now, how do we live; in what understanding do we live? 2 Corinthians 5:1-8, " For we know..." I guess this is our problem: what do we know? And how do we know - by man’s doctrine or by The Truth as it is in Jesus? "For we know that if our earthly (all of the first) house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have (not going to get someday) a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven (we live in Christ!). And the issue is not just that we be unclothed, but clothed upon (verse 4), and its purpose is that "mortality might be swallowed up of life." Oh my - let the Lord deal with our hearts about that. His Life - swallowing up all of the death realm, all of the first, the flesh, the temporal - that it would all pass away and only He would remain: as our Life, and we finding our Life only in Him! Friends, that’s more glorious to me than any gold house for "me" to live in when "I get to heaven", for this is to be so NOW - and it is true NOW by The Work of The Cross.

This is the Work of God in us today as His more glorious House. Verse 5, "Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God, who also hath given us the earnest of the Spirit." The Holy Spirit has been sent to bring us to this Truth. We are not to be contented with an earthly, fleshly relationship with the Lord, in our own strength; but to go on to the more glorious, spiritual, mature relationship - Let us go on unto perfection! And while we are finding our lives in the first realm (verse 6-8), we are absent from the Lord, for He and His Life is not in that first realm, but rather in the second. And it is the Holy Spirit in us that truly groans for this.

Look at Romans 8:16-23. "The Spirit itself beareth witness...(notice not "testimony", for here the Spirit is The Spirit of Truth, and The Truth has come!) With our spirit, that we are the children of God." Now this whole relationship to which we are brought comes down to glory."...if so be that we suffer with him (His death on The Cross) , that we may also be glorified together (one glory - His). For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time (the earthly realm of the first) are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." This is not a glory outside of us that we can touch or see, but this is Christ in us, the glory of God Himself dwelling in us - while we are upon this earth. This is not some place we are going to, but the reality that Christ now lives again in His Body on this earth. And nothing of this present time - the good or the bad of it, can compare to that! "For the earnest expectation of the creature (the creation) waiteth for the manifestation (the unveiling) of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity (it has no true substance) not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope." God has subjected the whole of the first creation to vanity - waiting to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. God’s answer is in His people coming to maturity in their relationship with Him, and manifesting that Truth in the midst of the darkness in the earth!

Christians today are waiting to be "snatched out" of this present world and go to a "better place"; and the reality is that this world is waiting for Christians to manifest that better, more glorious place that they have been brought to : Life in Christ! Verse 24 speaks of a groaning within ourselves, those who have the first fruits of the Spirit. Friends - nothing but the Truth of Christ will fulfil that groaning in you because the Spirit knows the spiritual from the fleshly; He knows the heavenly from the earthly; He knows the Truth in Christ from man’s religious doctrines of vanity. May He give us no rest until The Work of The Cross is completed in us, taking away all of the first and establishing all that He is (the second). Let us set our hearts upon that.

THE WAY INTO THE HOLIEST

We are speaking of coming from the first knowing of God - by the flesh, in types and shadows: to the second knowing of God - by the Spirit, in Truth. Here’s something to consider. There was a glory to the first, but God’s glory under the first was intolerable to man - it brought destruction. If man saw God he expected to die! Under the first, man could not come into the very presence of God and stay and enjoy fellowship with Him. But this was not God’s full plan for man, and it was typed in the old by the High Priest who only once a year could come into the Holy of Holies, and then only with blood and clothed in the garments of the High Priest. Then he could enter the Holiest of all, into God’s glory, but he could not remain. But now, by The Cross, the second fulfils what the first spoke of, and now God’s glory is unto Salvation. Now, IN CHRIST, we can enjoy God’s glory and be in His presence continually. No flesh shall glory in His presence: but now, in Christ, we do not enter as the old, but we come as the New Creation, created in Christ and one with Him. What a blessing and privilege we have today, in Christ, by His Cross to abide in the presence of God continually and have His glory abide in us continually! There is much to consider in this regard.

Now the principle that we are dealing with is He takes away the first that He may establish the second, and this has many applications. Let us look in the testimony at the pattern that is set forth for us. Hebrews 8:7-13 sets forth the difference between the first and second covenants. "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a NEW covenant with the house of Israel...NOT according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them...out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord." The old, the first covenant brought them out, but they didn’t keep it and God regarded them not. Verse 10, "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days (those days ended at The Cross) saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts..." Now the law would not be on tables of stone, but inwardly wrought in them. Then they shall know Him, and He will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will be remembered no more. Remember, the first covenant had to do with their sinful state. Now, by The Cross - sin is dealt with and that necessitates a New Covenant, not based on man’s sins, but on God’s grace and mercy.

Verse 13, "In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made (not is going to - he hath made) the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." This is according to God’s will - the old will vanish away. And this old is knowing God according to the letter of the law, by the types and shadows, but never knowing Him face to face in Truth. Then Hebrews 9:1-10 describes the ordinance of the divine service and the worldly sanctuary of the first covenant. All of these implements spoke of Christ and His Work of Redemption, but this was only in type, and the writer here is using the two compartments in the Tabernacle of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies to show the difference between the first and the second, and describing their relationship to Christ.

Verse 6, "...the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God." It was here that they daily and hourly went through religious activities; this place was where man constantly went through the rituals of the temple service. Now this was of God, and had a glory to it, but the True Glory of God remained hidden behind the veil where they could not go. The emphasis here is on service, but remember that in John 15:15, Jesus on the way to The Cross said, " Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth", and I believe this sums up our religious service in this place. This is fleshly service: it is religious and well meaning, but the servant doesn’t know God’s will. This is an in-part knowing; there is no real, true knowledge of God. This is by man and satisfies man, and is for the Lord rather than the Lord doing it. On the outside it looks very religious and fine, but this is NOT the Holy of Holies, the place that is entirely different. In the Holy of Holies there is no religious service and constant activity - there is just His glory and perfect rest. I suggest you look in Ezekiel 44 where God differentiates between the service of the priests for another view: one service is of the sanctuary, and the other is "nigh unto God". Now, which is the more glorious?

Verse 7, "But (the second is always connected with "but") into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people." Now into the second comes only the High Priest alone! If we could understand this, I believe a lot of our theology would be corrected. In the second it is CHRIST ONLY - ALONE - "Not I, but Christ!" You and Jesus may seem glorious, but Christ alone is more glorious! Now here’s the key in verse 8. "The Holy Ghost thus signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." The first must be done away so the way into the holiest may appear; and don’t forget that Christ crucified is "the Way" to The Father. He is The Way, but while the first, old, worldly service and knowledge of God continues in our hearts, we will not know Him as The Way to The Father, and therefore remain in the first place - kept out of the Holiest of all. This has tremendous implications for us because in many people’s hearts they will not give up this fleshly, worldly service - my church, my ministry, how we believe, this is what we do in our church - and because of that have never gone on to true spiritual worship and communion in God’s presence. Like everything else - He has come to take away the first and establish the second - and bring us into the very presence of The Father. And if we remain anchored in the first, the way into the second will not be made manifest to us.

There may be some who will say, ‘Well, I’ll just stay in that first tabernacle (first knowing by the flesh)"; but as we’re learning, the first was never meant by God to remain. Look at verse 9, "Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make them that did the service perfect (the first never brings to perfection) as pertaining the conscience; which stood only in meats and drinks and diverse washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation." Clearly we can see here these fleshly commandments and the services under the law of the first covenant were only in figure and were only for a time. Until - the time of reformation. And that word means, "setting things right". And when were things set right? At The Cross! Then the figures were fulfilled, the veil was rent and the first was removed and THE WAY into the holiest of all was made manifest! While the first remained they could NOT enter into the Holy of Holies. "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building." Verse 14 says that His blood now purges your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

This principle of the way into the holiest not being manifest while the first is standing can be seen in the scripture. In Isaiah 6 it was when Uzziah died (done away); then Isaiah saw the Lord - in His temple, filling it with Himself. 2 Chronicles 26 gives us Uzziah’s story. He became strong by the Lord, but then his heart was lifted up to his destruction: he goes into the temple and usurps the place of the priest to burn incense. But the Lord exposed the true condition of Uzziah and he died in that leprosy. You see, as long as man remains, pride exalts the flesh and we will intrude into God’s work. It is man who defiles the temple, so all of that man must go: THEN The Lord can fill His temple with Himself, and that is exactly what The Cross did.

Think about Saul and David. Saul was the flesh King, but David was God’s choice - a man after God’s own heart. Although David is anointed King, he waits until Saul dies, and only then is his kingdom established. Look at 2 Samuel 3:1, "Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David; but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker." The war between the flesh and the Spirit remains long, but the first weakens and fades away, and the second grows stronger and is established because that is what God has determined, and has received in Truth in Christ and The Cross.

You see the first kept us from God, and God ordained it to be that way for a time - until Christ, that Greater High Priest came. Now the first, the law, the ordinances that kept us away from God were done away with by His death - HE rent the veil, HE removed the first and HE became The Way into the holiest. Colossians 2:14, " Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." Hebrews 10:19-23, "Now we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Now by The Cross the way is made manifest, and we no longer remain in the first tabernacle, but into the Holiest of all! He has removed the first, making and becoming the Way into the second for us.

This is a most glorious thought, but it was a very sad day for me when I came to realize what religious man had done regarding this veil and it being rent (from top to bottom, inside out!) Even though that veil was literally destroyed when Jesus died on The Cross, making the temple worship unnecessary, that form of worship continued in that same temple for almost forty more years. The form could only have been continued by putting that veil back up and maintaining the religious observances of the Temple. Although Christ destroyed it, man refused to let go of the old, and because of that, refused The Way offered by The Cross. Now as far as the Jews go, we know that is just what they did - they refused Him and what His death did away with, and they just continued on with their religious traditions. BUT The Way into the second had come, and in the year 70 A.D. the literal destruction of that same temple took place (the old was ready to vanish away), and when that destruction was complete not one stone remained upon another!

But now - in Christ - by His death, burial and resurrection, He has raised up another, more glorious temple, and has established His New Covenant in a New Creation. May the Lord deal with our hearts that we recognize that ALL of the old must be totally done away so that the second can be established. If not we can continue in our vain, fleshly service "imagining" what things are like "behind the veil", and deceiving ourselves. The Way has been made manifest for us to enter boldly into the second by The Cross, let us not build again the first that will keep us out. Let us ask the Lord for a greater working of The Cross in us to remove all of the first - that nothing of that be left standing.

THE BATTLE

We want to continue to discuss the battle that goes on between the taking away of the first and the establishing of the second, and this does have tremendous implications for us as believers today. We have been given Life by Christ in the second, but our understanding needs to be opened to that fact, and in order to walk in the newness of that Life, we must allow ALL of the old to be taken away - in our hearts and minds, so that our New Life, which is Christ can be established in us. And the work of the enemy can not remove us from Christ, but will attempt to keep us from reaching the fulness of that Life by keeping us bound to the religious types and shadows of the first. Just remember, it takes Christ and The Cross working in you to totally do away with the first and to make the second manifest.

The book of Galatians has a lot to say about the first and the second, flesh and Spirit, types and Truth. The problem was that religious man was trying to take believers back to the first, to the law, to the old; rather than living in the Truth of what Christ by His Cross had finished, and a lot of Christianity is involved in this today. We must always remember that Christ has come and The Cross has happened. We now must walk in the Truth of that. THE CHURCH WAS BIRTHED IN THE REALITY OF THE CROSS; but that is the Church, the Body of Christ; not our denominational buildings and religions. This is so clearly evident in the book of Acts, and this was what Paul preached to the Church - Christ and Him crucified. But as we can see in Galatians, there were those who would seek to mix grace and law, and take believers back to the law for their justification, and thereby negating the Work of The Cross.

Galatians 3:1-3, "O Foolish Galatians, (these are believers), who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth (the Truth is seen by Christ at The Cross - the unveiled reality lying as the basis of what the old spoke of), before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are you now made perfect by the flesh?" You see, the reality of The Cross has said NO! To the flesh and YES! To the Spirit: why go back to worship by the flesh and in the flesh? We must realize that The Cross has changed things. Galatians 4:7-10, "Wherefore (by The Cross, we have the Spirit of His Son in our hearts (vs. 6) crying Abba, Father), thou are no more a servant, but a son (recognized by the Father), and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known by God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times and years."

The truth is that the temporal, fleshly observances of the first are the weak and beggarly elements, end even though that offends our religious doctrines, the reality of The Cross has done away with that form of worship. That forms never changed man, never brought perfection, and only kept them in bondage to it; but there were those that desired that bondage. And today there are many who desire that bondage. I’ve asked the Lord - why? And I’ve come to realize that for many it is easier to deal with the types and shadows - the darkness; rather than to deal with and be dealt with by Truth - total light. You see, in Him, there is no darkness at all, and no excuse for our flesh: because The Cross is God’s answer to that. Many desire to remain in the shadows and veiled forms which allows them to function in the flesh, rather than be dealt with as sons and take on the responsibility that this entails. In the face of Perfect Light, all is exposed - and most of us will not allow that to happen, so we continue in our religious forms - deceiving ourselves.

Verses 22-26 of Galatians 3 compares the two covenants: the old and new. We must see that both are of God, but the first is earthy and gendereth to bondage (vs. 24) while the other is above and free and is the mother of us all (vs. 26), but that’s The New Creation in Christ. Friends, the Truth of The Cross is we were born again, from above - after the Spirit and free from the flesh, because the flesh died at The Cross. But the flesh persecutes the Spirit (verse 29-31). What is God’s answer? "Cast out the bondwoman and her son (the first, the old, the law) for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." It is The Cross that puts away the flesh and what produced it so that the second can be recognized and established as The True Son. Now what are we to do? Galatians 5:1, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Now, by The Cross we are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit. May the Finished Work of The Cross be worked in us and allow us to stand fast in what the victory of His Cross has established.

WHEN THAT WHICH IS PERFECT IS COME

We are considering The Work of The Cross in bringing us from the types and the shadows to the reality: from seeing through a glass darkly to finally seeing face to face, and being changed into that same image of Christ. Now, there is a partial knowledge of the Lord through the types and shadows - through the law and all of its rituals and forms; but God would bring us to a greater, fuller knowledge, whereby we are changed. This is the knowledge the Apostle Paul speaks of in his writings - a full, experiential knowledge of The Truth. He prayed for the Church in Ephesians 1:15-23 that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened; that they would KNOW... But this is not knowing things about Him, but knowing HIM AS HE IS. Paul prayed that "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of HIM... Let this also be our prayer. The Lord would bring us from knowing things about Him (the testimony; all that pointed to Him) to knowing Him in Truth (manifesting His Life and becoming the Witness of Him in the earth). As we’ve said, this is the more glorious.

So the question for us is - when does this happen in us? 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 gives us a clue. "For we know in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known..." Here again we see that the first knowing is not complete, it is a partial knowledge, it is still seen through the veil of flesh and because of that is without full understanding. The Apostle Paul describes this as the status of a child, and in this condition everything that is spoken, understood, thought and done is as a child. But as is always the case with God, He does not stop at the first, but wants us to grow up (come to maturity, to fulness). Now this is not reached by natural time, but by the means that God has already established - The Cross; because when that which is perfect is come, THEN that which is in part shall be done away. Well - The Perfect One - CHRIST HAS COME! And He, by His Cross does away with the first, the in part, the childish knowledge that is darkly known through the types and shadows, and is interpreted by our imaginations into many of our religious doctrines today.

Think for a moment of many of the religious beliefs we have of heaven, or righteousness, or the church. So many of them can not even be supported by the scripture. Where did we get them from? Can we not see that the in-part, childish knowledge we have, clinging to the types and shadows and religious forms of the old is because that which is perfect has not come: in our hearts - in our minds? And the sad thing is that because of this we as Christians do not know ourselves even as we are known of God. Friends - God knows us in the reality of The Finished Work of His Son on The Cross. He deals with us in that way, and yet so many of us are still in our darkness trying to gain the victory, trying to fight the devil every day, trying to live our life for Jesus - and we never do find success. Most of us don’t even comprehend God’s dealings with us: God deals with us as sons, but we want Him to deal with us as children, which allows us not to take the responsibility we should. Isn’t that what Hebrews 12 tells us: despise not the chastening of the Lord, for if you endure chastening God deals with you as sons. Why? So that we may be partakers of HIS holiness - not to talk about holiness, but to take on His nature of holiness as we grow up in Him.

There is a knowing of us that God has of us. By The Cross, in His Son, we who were as the old creation are dead. And now those in Him, live by Him and as Him - not as themselves. They now find Him to be their Life, and that they live, move and have their being in Him; they have put away "their" life, and their knowing of Him by the flesh. When will that happen? When He that is perfect is come - is revealed in you. And until you begin to see Him - as He is - in Truth, in the reality of The Cross, you will not give up the partial, fleshly knowledge you have. Why? Because that’s all you have! It is all religious, but it only speaks of Him and is not Him. It was done away with (the first) when He came, so that He could establish the second. And when He comes - is revealed in you, as He is - your Life - then you put away the first. Why? Because The Perfect One is come! Now you don’t need the things that point to Him, because you have Him! This is why the revelation of Christ is so essential to the believer’s growing up. You will not put away the types until you have the substance; you will not put away the shadows until The Truth is revealed. And unfortunately this is the very real state of many people today: they "religiously" cling to "their" church and "what we believe", but have no personal relationship with the Lord.

In the scripture this first knowing, this in-part knowledge is summed up as the law; not just the Ten Commandments, but the whole religious order of sacrifice, service, priests, feasts, etc. It all spoke of Christ, but it was never intended of God to be established and remain as such. So therefore, when Jesus died on The Cross, the law and that whole order was finished. Why? Because that which is perfect is come! Now let’s look at the law in Galatians 3:19-25. We know that God made the promise to Abraham, but then, later the law was given. Why? "Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed shall come..." Notice what is under the first is always limited by a time, but this is not hours and years, but the time set - when the seed (Christ) should come. All of the first was ordained of God until He came. Verse 21, "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid; for if there had been a law given which could give life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. (believe not on the law - but on Christ) But before faith came, we were kept under the law (God’s people were guarded under the first knowledge - for a time), shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." Just like everything of the first, the law was never to continue indefinitely and eternally - it was for a time: until Christ came. Notice that there was no law given that gave life - but only Christ coming brings life. The law kept a people until faith came: until knowledge of Christ was revealed. This faith comes afterward... after what? The Cross! Verse 23 says, "The faith which should afterwards be revealed." The word "revealed" there is the unveiling, taking away the veil and bringing to sight that which was hidden. Isn’t that what happened when Jesus was on The Cross? The veil was rent - the first, the law of commandments was done away, and the way into the second was made manifest; what had been hidden was now brought to view!

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come (when that which is perfect is come), we are no longer under a schoolmaster." You see, the law was good, the law was of God, but it was not perfect and it only held God’s people until The One came who would fulfil the law and do away with it by The Cross. The law was to bring them to Christ. Now there is nothing wrong with studying the law - the types and the shadows, but we must realize that the law has but one purpose - to bring you to Christ. Paul calls the law a schoolmaster, and the schoolmaster dealt with a child until they came of age. The schoolmaster would teach the child the rules and the regulations of the household, but it was always with the thinking towards the day that the child would be recognized by the Father as the son - mature in the knowledge and nature of his Father, ready to function with the Father’s name and authority. And prior to his coming to maturity, the child under the schoolmaster had little dealings with his father (give that some thought!), and although the training by the schoolmaster was harsh at times, it was always towards the heir eventually taking his rightful place as son. (Read on in Galatians 4) But when faith came, when truth came, when that which is perfect is come; that which is childish, under the law, in part, is done away with. This was God’s plan. This is what The Cross accomplished, and this is now what must be done in us. And this transition will greatly change us.

Let’s look briefly at a few instances of the effect of the coming of that which is perfect has in the scripture. We remember that John the Baptist preached repentance and baptized people according to the Jewish traditions. But John, from before his birth was raised up to make a people ready for the Lord (Luke 1:17). John had a ministry, and that ministry summed up the first knowledge of God, but it was only for a time. John sees the Lord - "Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Now, who John spoke of - HAS COME! Now the ministry of John is swallowed up and done away - when that which is perfect is come! And this affected John and his ministry. (John 3:25-36). John’s disciples were worried that now that Jesus was on the scene that they would lose followers and many would go to Jesus. Oh my, is that not still unfortunately the spirit that is in the church today - "my congregation", "my people", "my ministry"?

But John has seen The Perfect One, and John knows that he is not that one. Verse 28, "Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him. (CHRIST IS THE END!) He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; (do you have a Church?) But the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." When He comes, we who truly have seen Him and heard His voice are taken away. But - do we lose anything? No - in His coming we are fulfilled, and the seeing of Him urges us to allow The Cross to remove anything that would hinder His increase. Did John lose his ministry? No - it was fulfilled in that which John was raised up to point to. You see, John was looking for The Perfect One to come, and John recognized he was not that one, and his work was not the end - the greater One was. My question to us is - what are we looking at?

Next, let’s look at Simeon in Luke 2:25-35. Simeon was in the temple in Jerusalem, in the first, functioning faithfully unto the first, waiting for the consolation of Israel. Simeon’s heart was not upon the law and its forms, but upon what the law promised would come. And the Holy Ghost revealed to him that he would not die (be done away with) until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So - The One who was promised, The One he was looking for - came - into the first, under the first; but when Simeon sees Him, The Perfect One, he realizes his ministry is over. "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation..."He had seen The ONE - He had come - now all of the in part knowledge could be put away! His eyes had seen! Now Simeon didn’t look for the consolation - imagining what it would be, he had seen it in the Person of Christ, and the Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon The Truth of what God had prepared! Do you think after seeing Christ that Simeon’s time in the temple was ever the same? Do you think that John ever preached that there was One Coming after he had seen that the Lamb of God had come? When that which is perfect comes you no longer are the same, and your message no longer is the same!

Anna, the prophetess (verse 36-38) was also in the temple, praying and fasting under the first, serving God. But she now sees The Lord. "And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Everything that she was doing now was swallowed up in HIM! Friends, when Christ, Who is that which is Perfect is revealed in you, you won’t talk of types and shadows, fleshly service and in part knowledge - you will SPEAK OF HIM!

CHRIST IS THE END OF THE LAW

We are seeing that the law was good, but it was of the first, it was limited: only for a time - until Christ came. We saw that the law is a schoolmaster - to bring us to Christ. And even though we are not jews in the flesh, our first knowledge of God is in rules and regulations, going to a place to meet God, performing rituals to enable us to approach God; and that knowledge will continue UNTIL Christ comes - until He’s revealed in us. Then, we no longer need those things and ways, because The Truth of which they spoke, has come! Why hold on to a shadow when the substance is come? And it does take Him being revealed in us to show us the difference between the substance and the shadow.

John 1:17 says, "The law was given by (through) Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Notice again the word "but", comparing the first to the second. Now think of the difference - Moses got the law from God, and he gave it to the people, but Moses was still a man, still under that same law. But Christ came AS grace and Truth: God’s grace and truth were seen in the Person of Christ - it was not something apart from Him. The law spoke of God’s grace and truth, but did not give it to man: that only came by Jesus Christ. Note here that "Jesus Christ" is His name in His flesh body to die. So, we know God’s grace and truth, and it came to us by Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection.

Now let’s look at something in the testimony and its fulfillment in Christ. Moses was the law giver, he received the law from God under the old, first covenant, but did Moses take the nation of Israel into the fulfillment, into the promised land? No! Deuteronomy 34:4-5, "And the Lord said unto him (Moses), this is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses, the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord." Moses, representing the law and that old form saw the land (it all pointed to the fulness), but it could not bring the people into it. Now this has tremendous applications for us who think that turning back to legality in Christianity will bring us to fulness. Remember the story? Moses had to die - Moses, the servant, and all those in unbelief - had to die. Then God said to Joshua (Joshua 1:2) "Moses, my servant is dead: NOW therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people (speaking of a New Creation) unto the land which I do give to them..." The old had to die and be reckoned dead before the fulness could be entered into.

But why was Moses refused entrance? Go back to the testimony. Numbers 20:7-13, where Moses was told to speak to the rock that it may give forth water out of the rock. Did Moses obey God? Verse 10, "...must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice..." Now, the rock, which is Christ crucified in type, had already been struck, and the water of life flowed from it. Now Moses only had to speak to it. But Moses (the law) took charge of the situation in his own strength, and he strikes it again! In effect what did he do, for which Moses was denied entrance into the land? (Verse 12) Moses by striking the rock twice made the first striking of none effect! In essence he made The Cross of none effect. Moses said I have to do this; and this is what the law does, rather than resting in The Finished Work and living in the Truth of it. You see, the law spoke of that rest, but could not bring the people into it; the law was a shadow of things to come (Christ) and never brings to perfection, and always ends in us trying to accomplish things for God.

This is still a struggle in the Church today - the law vs. Christ; the types vs. The Truth; the shadows vs. the reality. Christ coming and dying the death of The Cross did what the law spoke of but could not do. Matthew 5:17, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Paul realized this, and Paul kept the law and was blameless as to the righteousness of the law, but Paul came to see the law fulfilled in Christ, and therefore he became free from the law by the understanding of what Christ did. Galatians 2:21, "I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." And the truth is that if we try to make our righteousness by the law: observing the letter of the law in days and times, holding to the fleshly service of God, then we make His death in vain. Let us take that admonition very seriously: the reality of The Cross demands that we do so. Remember the grace of God we read about in John 1? That didn’t come by the law - but by Jesus Christ, and we are only justified today by faith in Him.

We have no need of the law today because it was summed up and fulfilled by Christ and Him crucified. Romans 10:4, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." In what? The law? No - that Christ by His Cross fulfilled it. Verse 1-3 in that chapter sadly also describes many Christians today: "...they have a zeal of God, but not according to (God’s) knowledge (which is manifested in Christ). For being ignorant of God’s righteousness (through Christ) and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." You see this thing is a lot more serious than, ‘well, this is what we believe in our church.’ Our turning again to the law for our right standing with God is seen by God as our not submitting ourselves to His righteousness which is Christ. And friends, we do it all too often in our zeal for God, but we do it in our ignorance of Him. That’s why when He comes - The Truth, the wisdom and knowledge of God - these things must be put away! Now you realize you are made righteous by Christ alone, and now you can come to The Father in Him. Whereas the law kept you out, now in Christ, you enter in!

Once again, the law had its place, but by Christ’s death we are free from it. Romans 7 tells us that God’s people were married to the law. When? In times past, before Christ came. Verse 4, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that (here’s the purpose) ye should also be married to another (a different one - not another law), even to him who is raised from the dead, that (here’s the purpose of The New Creation in union with Christ) we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh (under the law that tried to control it) the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." Listen - the law never brings to life: it only brings to death and brings forth fruit unto death! But now we are delivered from the law (by His Cross), having died to that wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter."

By His death we are now free to live as One with Another (Christ). We first were married to the law, but His death releases us to now live in the newness of the Spirit - in His Life. He came to take away the first - all of the first, including all of the law; so that now the New, the Spirit, His Life is established and we as His Bride can bring forth fruits unto God. May the Lord deal with our hearts. The law was to bring us to Christ, and if your learning of the scriptures and reading of your Bible does not bring you to Christ - then it is useless, and will only bring forth fruits of death. But when you are brought to Him by The Word, then He fulfills all of the law, and you have no need of the letter of it, and now you can know Him and live in the newness of the Spirit. Paul said (Romans 8:2), "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Only seeing Christ as the fulfillment and end of the law of sin and death will allow us to walk in Newness of Life. May the Lord open our eyes to see Him this way!

SEEING CHRIST AS THE FULFILLMENT

We are learning that it is the coming of the Lord Jesus that changes things, and that everything is centered in The Cross: there He brings an end to the first, and the beginning of the second. In considering this we must keep the emphasis on the person of Jesus - not just as a theological thought, but in the Truth of Who He is. Look at Matthew 5:17 again. "Think not that I am come to destroy (Loose them from) the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." HE, in the Truth of the Person He is - the nature of His Life, would fulfil all the types and shadows, and perfectly satisfy God’s demands by His obedience to all that the law spoke of. Man by himself could not do that. You see, Jesus didn’t come to earth just to follow the law, but to fulfil it, to satisfy God’s demands of the law, and thereby doing away with the need of it. He, as Who He was fulfilled it, because all of the law and prophets spoke of Him, and they were good until He came!

Regarding the law: Hebrews 9:10-12, "...carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But CHRIST being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building (another creation). Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." The carnal ordinances spoke of eternal redemption but never accomplished that; but Christ by His Cross obtained that for us. What do you need the law for now? Colossians 1:25-27, "Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid (the law kept it hidden) from ages and from generations, but NOW (by The Cross) is made manifest to his saints ; To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory..." This was accomplished by The Person of Christ, and He now lives in you, doing away with the external law.

Regarding the prophets: 1 Peter 1:10-12, " 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..." The prophets spoke of the grace that would come, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would come. But now that He has come, are we still looking for another prophecy? 2 Peter 1:19 says, " We have also a more sure word of prophecy (the word of prophecy made more sure)...Why? Because they have seen The One of whom the prophets spoke! Now, because He has come..."whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." Now the Light has come, the Day has come, that which the prophets prophesied of - has come! We do well to take heed of that. You see, although the prophets prophesied many things, they all spoke of Him, and when He came, the words they prophesied were all fulfilled in Him as The Word. Revelation 19:10, "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

May the Lord show us that all the law and the prophets spoke of came to be fulfilled in Jesus. So now we must not look past Him, for they all stop with Him. This was Jesus’ rebuke to the Jews. John 5:39-47, "(You do) Search the scriptures; for in them you think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life....Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses (the law), in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words.?" Moses and the prophets wrote of Him, and that was all to bring them to Christ, but they would not look past the letter to see that The One of Whom they all spoke had come and fulfilled all that was written. But friends, Life is not in the letter, but in the Spirit of Who He is - we have to let the written Word bring us to Him, the Living Word! Then we have Life.

We’re going to look at just a few ways that Jesus in His Person, coming in the body of flesh fulfilled the law, and we will reference parts of the temple order of worship. This list is by no means complete, and we encourage you to seek out Him as the fulfillment to other aspects of the law. Remember, He didn’t just come to do those things, but HE IS what they spoke of.

Sacrifice: the brazen altar was the first thing you met inside the tabernacle or temple. Jesus doesn’t bring a sacrifice - HE IS THE SACRIFICE! John 1:29 - John is baptizing, and he sees Jesus: "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." How will He do that? By The Cross. Notice also - not sins (the acts) alone, but the whole realm of sin will be taken away by The Lamb. Matthew 3:15; John didn’t want to baptize Jesus, saying that he had need to be baptized of Him, "and Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him." John realized the ceremonial washing didn’t take away sin, but The One who would had come, and by His death (his baptism), all the righteousness of the law would be fulfilled.

Bread - John 6:31-35, "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world...I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Verse 51, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Verse 53-58, "Except ye eat the flesh and drink His blood you have no life in you...As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me..." This is not meat that perishes, but the True Bread of which everything else was a type of.

Light - He doesn’t light a candle - He is The Light. John 8:12, " I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness." It is interesting that this follows verse 1-11, the woman caught in the act of adultery. "Moses in the law commands she be stoned. What sayest thou?...He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." The law convicts of sin, but she came to Jesus, He pardoned her, but the others left - in their sin. Then chapter 9 continues with The Light healing the eyes of the man blind from birth (we are naturally born blind to God, but He only gives light). And what happened when the man got sight? He was put out of the synagogue! Blindness kept him from God, but Christ brought him to The Father - outside the traditional temple.

Door - Jesus doesn’t show a way: HE IS THE WAY, THE DOOR. John 10:1: we think we can come in another way. Verse 7-11, " Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." And this He did by The Cross!

Feasts - we’ll just reference The Passover now. 1 Corinthians 5:7-8," Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." HE IS OUR PASSOVER - He didn’t just celebrate it - He is it - in Truth! Why? Because of His death!

High Priest - The High Priest was essential to the functioning of the whole temple worship. Hebrews 7:11-12, "If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should arise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. Verse 15, "And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifiesth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw night unto God."

That better hope is Christ - He has come, and He has fulfilled those things of which the law spoke. NOW WE CAN DRAW NIGH UNTO GOD! Now we have no need for those things, but just for Him: that Christ may be all in all!

HIS FIRST COMING

So in way of closing these meditations, let us summarize Jesus’ first coming. We are seeing that the law was given of God until Christ came, The One to whom the promise was given. It was God’s way of dealing with man in his sinful state, but all of the sacrifices and rituals did not satisfy the demands of the law: sin was just covered, not removed, and God was only able to continue dealing with man through those sacrifices. So the law was not perfect and never satisfied God. Hebrews 10:5-6 says, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou has had no pleasure." These offerings did not satisfy the demands of the law; they appeased God for a time, but man was still in his sin - an enemy of God. Now this is important for us, because if the old covenant form of worship and sacrifice didn’t satisfy God, do we expect that our fleshly worship will?

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, By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The sacrifices and offerings of bulls and goats didn’t satisfy God, but Jesus was given a body that would satisfy God’s demands for sin. This is the body He was given to come into the world - it was in a body of flesh. This is His first coming; Jesus came into the first, as the first to do the will of the Father and take away the first, that He may establish the second. Isaiah prophesied of this in chapter 53: "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him...He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." This we know was speaking of Christ on The Cross.

So we want to look at His first coming and His first body. Hebrews9:26b-28, "...but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." He appeared to put away sin - ONCE - when the first creation (and all that was associated with it) would come to its appointed judgment. And since that first creation was of flesh and in sin, He appeared in the first with a body of the first - the flesh - in order to deal with sin and death. Now He was still the Son of God, but He was given this body of humiliation, a body of flesh, and He became son of man - in order to die and bring man to his appointed end by the judgment of His Cross. Notice verse 28, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second (time is not in the original) without sin unto salvation." There is a second appearing, and that is entirely different from the first, just as the second is always different in nature from the first. He appears as the second to those who have life by way of His Cross, and now He does not appear in sin and to deal with sin; but He appears unto full Salvation. That appearing is in you! And if we have understood these sharings, we will have to conclude that His second coming has to be entirely different than the first, no matter what our traditional teachings have taught us.

But let’s look scripturally at His first coming in the body of flesh. He came in the first and became as the first; but keep in mind - the first is to be taken away; it will not remain. And Christ in His first coming accomplished that by The Cross. We are going to look at what Jesus was made. He said, "I COME..." He came from heaven to earth and was given a flesh body for one purpose - TO DIE. His first coming dealt with man in the flesh, sin, death, disobedience, and consequently with the law under which God dealt with man. And the scriptures we are going to look at give us the purpose for His coming: to redeem, to die, to deliver, destroy death, make us come to God. But we must keep in mind that He did this by bringing an end to the first.

Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Philippians 2:5-11, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."And because He did that God could exalt Him and make Him Lord over all! He bore that body of humiliation and in obedience to His Father brought that humanity and creation to the death of The Cross.

Romans 8:2-4, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh (on the Cross) that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us..."

2 Corinthians 5:21, "For he hath made him (Christ) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Hebrews 2:9, "But we see Jesus, who was made (for a little while) lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Verse 14-16, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

Jesus came into the first in His first coming as the first; was subject to all of it, fulfilled it, took it to The Cross and did away with it. He will not come as the second, in the second the same way He did as the first because He finished The Work by His Cross! So how are we looking for Him to come? His first coming was to bring the first to an end by the judgment of The Cross. Has He appeared to you in that way and finished that Work in you? His second coming will be to those who have accepted His first coming and now look unto Him as the second - unto full Salvation. Truly, The Cross accomplishes all things!