13. Class 13 – Visions Of The Kingdo Age by Jim Dillingham

13. Class 13 – Visions Of The Kingdo Age by Jim Dillingham

This is the 13th class in the series Visions of the Kingdom Age Sunday class held at the Cranston ecclesia Rhode Island.

Our hopeful anticipation is to be invited to inherit the kingdom prepared for the faithful since the beginning of our Creator’s plan just under 6,000 years ago. And in order inherit the kingdom we will have to be given a new nature, a righteousness-blessed nature, instead of our current sin-cursed nature.

In the context of these considerations of this nature of salvation we should understand the application of how a new name is given to the immortalised saints. We read in Rev 2 and Rev 3, “He that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit says unto the ecclesias. To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receives it.

And as in Ch 3:12 “Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God which is new Jerusalem and which comes down out of heaven from my God. And I will write upon him my new name.”

The immortalised saints get a new name that is associated with the New Jerusalem. This constitutes a consistent theme of the “new name” from the beginning of time which would as noted about 6,000 years ago and this new name will take place when that 2nd immortalisation event takes place for that 1st set of saints at the beginning of the millennial kingdom.

We can easily see the divine pattern where a divinely assigned name indicates some unique features of the one being named. The names Yahweh and Jesus are two perfect examples. We also see how Yahweh changed the name of Abram to Abraham to identify the divine truth of Gods promise to make Abram a father of many nations.

In Gen 17 he gives the sign of the covenant of circumcision, he says, Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram but thy name shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations have I made thee. That 2nd birth, the being born again experience from flesh nature to spirit nature, from mortality to immortality, from corruptible to incorruptible will require a new name, a name that defines the immortalized saints.

Now there are 2 precedents for officially being assigned a new name in our current procedures of life. Birth and marriage. When a child is born, when its life begins separate and independent from its mother, it is given an offical name, identifying the child with its father, the name of its father’s family. This is why my grand-children are identified by the names Conniver and Mackintyre, because the children are identified by the family name of the father. When a woman and a man marry, the bride takes the name of the groom which is again why my daughters are no longer identified by my name which was given at their birth. They took new names at their marriage, the name of their husband by divine precedent as a sign of the hope for the saints.

The increasingly common practice for a wife combining her maiden name and her husband’s name upon her marriage is a contradiction of divine principles, which shouldn’t be surprising in this day and age. These naming and renaming patterns reflect divine principles. Both God and Christ are presented as fathers in scripture. We are taught to pray to our father in heaven by Jesus. Jesus’ is prophesied as the everlasting father, prince of peace, mighty councillor, upon whose shoulder the covenant will rest. Isaiah also prophecies that when the Messiah would make his life an offering for sin, he would see his seed, in other words his descendants.

We noted how we have been born twice, or wish to be born twice, have to be born twice, once from a mortal mother and again from an immortal father, if we wish to inherit the kingdom. The faithful will be born again into the spirit nature through Jesus, therefore they, hopefully, we, will not only qualify for, but require, a new name, identified by their father, which will be Jesus Christ, who was named by his Father.

In the same name identification sense, the saints are presented as the bride of Christ, also in this sense of the union, the oneness achieved in marriage, the saints qualify for a new name, identified by the name of their groom, whose name is identified by his Father. As a sign of our hope in that new name, offered on the basis of both a new birth and marriage, we are baptised into the family name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. This is the phrase we use we use when a person is baptised, from Mat 28:19, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name, the name, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are baptised into that single name, the family name, of the Father, the Son and God’s Holy power.

We take a new name at baptism, the name of God. We lift that name up upon ourselves, and bear that name before all mankind, for honour or dishonour. Just as a child’s good or bad behaviour reflects honour or dishonour on their family name. Just as a wife’s loyalty and fidelity will reflect honour or dishonour on the name of her husband, so our behaviour reflects positively or negatively on our Heavenly Father’s name that we take at baptism.

It is very odd to hear brethren suggest that perhaps we should not promote this baptismal phrase, as it is a favourite of the trinitarians. That is a very foolish suggestion. If we simply concentrate on defensively addressing the baseless contentions of that apostate Christian community, our spiritual growth will be severely stunted. Their postulations and the impossible presumptions they take for granted in their conclusions are utterly inconsequential.

Our primary responsibility is not to preach the truth but to understand our Creator, to understand the terms of his right-ness, his righteousness, and to demonstrate, personally demonstrate, that right-ness, that righteousness, in our thoughts, words and deeds.

The mindless sputterings of the un-elightened community with their uncircumcised, heart-generated imaginations, should not divert our attentions away from exactly what our Heavenly Father is communicating, exclusively for those who will be immortalised saints.

That baptismal phrase of being baptised into the one name, the family name, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is a beautiful expression of inclusion into the divine family name. My older brother and my father shared the exact same name Arthur Farnham Dillingham, but Snr and Jnr of course. I share the same name as my father, Dillingham. When we are baptised into the family name of Yahweh and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit we take upon ourselves the name of God. This is a very serious and consequential act.

Now let us look at some of the depth of this pattern of taking the name of God and how that understanding was also horribly distorted in the last divine dispensation, that 1st kingdom Age. Taking the name of God and bearing it with honour was the 3rd of the 10 commandments that has been so horribly misunderstood down through time. Ex 20:7 we read “Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” Jews and Christians have greatly disrespected this commandment by diminishing it into nothing more than a disrespectful verbal expression of a name, or even just the title of God. That would just be a tinsy, tiny little part of that commandment and certainly not the focus. This pattern of diminishing divine expressions, making mole-hills out of mountains, straining at a gnat whilst swallowing a camel, this is a very common behaviour-pattern for the uncircumcised in heart, whether part of the enlightened community or the un-enlightened community.

This commandment warning us not to take Yahweh’s name in vain, is about taking God’s name upon ourselves and being identified by his name, being the people of his name, being the children of our Heavenly Father, just like we do in baptism. The very Hebrew word being translated “take” in this commandment is ‘nasa’ which is predominantly translated “bear,” as in lifting something up and carrying it. We are being warned not to lift up upon ourselves and bear the name of God in vain, meaning, casually or falsely, because God will not hold us guiltless for this kind of behavioural slander against his name.

The Jews took this microscopic view of this 3rd commandment to an incredible extreme. The Rabbis would not even allow the name of God to be spoken aloud, even when reading the inspired text of Scripture. The Masoretic Jews who copied the Old Testament for hundreds of years would put vowel marks next to the letters of the Tetragrammaton, the 4 letters of the memorial name of God, YHWH, to remind the reader to either substitute Elohim or Adonai and not say the name of Yahweh out loud, fearing the technicality of verbalising God’s name in some unacceptable manner.

This extreme misunderstanding of the 3rd commandment eventually led to the misunderstanding that the pronunciation “Jehovah” actually represents God’s name, as the vowel marks of the Masorretes, along with the Latin J and V sounds which are absent in the Hebrew were incorporated into the expression of God’s name, Yahweh. The story of how the mistaken name Jehovah came about is explained very extensively in the preface section of the translation of the Revised Standard Version.

Interestingly, in that same introduction, the Christian translators make the huge mistake, presuming that God’s name is insignificant, as if the only purpose was to distinguish him from any other gods. Let’s read that paragraph from the Revised Standard version which was published in 1952.

Here is an exact quote from the preface.

RSV Preface

“A major departure from the practice of the American Standard version, is the rendering of the divine name, the Tetragrammaton. The American Standard Version used the term Jehovah. The King James Version had employed this in 4 places, but everywhere else except in these cases where it was employed as part of a proper name, used the English word LORD, with all capitals, or in certain cases GOD, printed in capitals. The present revision returns to the procedure of the King James Version which follows the precedent of the Ancient Greek and Latin translators and the long established practice in the reading of the Hebrew Scriptures in the synagogue.

Although it is almost, if not quite certain, that the name was actually pronounced Yahweh, this pronunciation was not indicated when the Masoretes added vowel signs to the consonantal Hebrew text. To the 4 consonants YHWH of the Name which had become to be regarded as too sacred to be pronounced, they attached vowel signs indicating that in its place should be read the Hebrew word Adonai, meaning “lord,” (or Elohim meaning “god.”)

The Ancient Greek translators substituted the word Kyrios, (lord) for the name. The Vulgate, likewise, used the Latin word “Dominus.” The form “Jehovah” is of late medieval origin: it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it by the Masoretes but belong to an entirely different word. The sound of Y is represented by J and the sound of W by V as in Latin.

For two reasons the Committee has returned to the more familiar usage of the King James Version: (1) The word “Jehovah” does not does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew; and (2) the use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom He had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian Era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.”

We can see how the Jewish obsession for minimalising that third of the 10 commandments resulted in a significant corruption of the very Memorial Name of God they were supposedly trying to avoid. The Christian community despises the name of God By presuming it is insignificant that the only purpose of a name is to distinguish between individuals. What an incredibly shallow frame of reference for both Jews and Christians.

Both Jew and Christians have overlooked the power of that Name. Jesus makes this name of his Father a focus of his last prayer before entering the garden of Gethsemane. He knows he will be arrested and will be dead by that time the next day. Jesus emphasises the significances of being identified with the name of his father.

In his last prayer before entering Gethsemane to be arrested and executed, Jesus says to his Father in Jn 17:11, “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee Holy Father. Keep through thine own name, those who thou hast given me, that they might be one as we are.”

It is by the power of the name of God that we might become one with God and Christ. It is by the power of the name that we are preserved, that we are kept. This is the name that we are baptised into, the name that we lift up upon ourselves and bear to the honour of our Heavenly Father and our intended groom. It is the hope of the faithful. Isaiah expresses it this way, in one of his prophecies of the millennial kingdom.

He says in Isa 26:8, “Yeah in the way of the judgments O Lord have we waited for thee, the desire of our soul is to thy Name and to the remembrance of thee.” Now this is in the exact same context of the glorious statement that Isaiah makes a few verses later when the prophet says, “thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

So obviously the desire of the faithful is the Name of God. The immortalised saints will be given a new name on the basis of being born again, born into a spirit nature, and on the basis of being the bride of the son of God. The lesson of the Name is central to our commitment and our hope. The significance of this name is central to understanding the first and greatest of all commandments. Hopefully we remember the separating feature we noted that the judgment portion of our studies concerning the acknowledgement of Jesus Christ, that he actually knows us on the basis of whether or not we truly love him and his Father.

True love is the central feature of divine acceptance. The greatest of all commandments is about elevating the love of Yahweh above all other loves. Above the love of the brotherhood, above the love of mankind, above the love of our spouse, above our children, our parents, and way, way above the love of self. However, this greatest of all commandments also displays the very plan of God that is bound up in the expression of his name.

First we need to define the actual first and greatest commandment. Most Bible students appear to think that the first and greatest commandment is simply to “love the Lord our God with all our heart and mine and strength.” However, once again this oversimplified understanding would put us at direct odds with Jesus Christ. Christ’s answer to what constituted the first and greatest commandment was more comprehensive which serves as the key to truly understanding why he defines it as the greatest of all commandments.

We read in Mark 12, where Jesus defines that complete first and great commandment. In v28, One of the scribes came and having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy strength, this is the first commandment.

Christ’s understanding of the first and greatest of all commandments includes the initial phrase, Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord. If this is the proclamation about a command then we should be curious as to why Jesus includes this statement as part of the construction of the greatest of all commands. Ignoring the inclusion of that initial phrase as inconsequential requires a presumption that either Jesus makes mistakes or that we are free to ignore whatever words of the son of God that we choose to ignore. That would obviously not be a very defensible position. Christ’s full expression of the greatest of all commands is incredibly significant.

When the command was initially presented in Deut 6:4-5, we read, Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart and with all thy soul and all thy might. Let’s fully translate the names and see why Jesus emphasises the significance of that initial declaration to see why he included that initial phrase in what he defines as the first and greatest commandment of his Father.

The King James Version, of course, reads, Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord.We could read it again with the actual Hebrew names. We see Hear O Israel, Yahweh our Elohim is one Yahweh. And of course in a full translation we would read, Hear O prince of the mighty one, He who shall be our mighty ones is He who shall be one. One God who becomes many but who are all still one.

This is the principal of God manifestation, multitudinous singularity.

This declaration that Chrst reports as the first part of the greatest of all commandments is the declaration of the plan of God bound up in the expression of his Father’s name. God the mighty one will become many, our mighty ones, who will all become one in him. One who will become many who will still all be one. Our singular God will manifest himself through a multitude who will all share a perfect harmony, a singularity with him.

It is a picture of a multitudinous singularity. The divine institution of the family unit is a perfect expression of this plan of the full first and great commandment. One man joins himself to a wife with two becoming one through marriage. Together they produce children and make a family, that family of four or five or even 12 is a single unit with a single name, the name of the father.

That single unit of multiple members is bound by love. Love was the binding agent for the two becoming one in marriage. Love was the catalyst for creating new life, their children, new members of that multitudinous singularity. Love is the power that creates that multitudinous singularity that is the first part of the greatest of all commandments.

Paul uses this sense of multitudinous singularity in how he parallels the design of the ecclesia to the design of the human body. Many parts harmoniously work together as a single unit. We read this in 1 Cor 12:12, “For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we are all baptised into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free and if all have been all made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member but many. If the foot shall say because I am not the hand I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, because I am not of the eye I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

Therefore following the declaration of the plan of God expressed in His name, the path is commanded for all who want to participate in this multitudinous singularity. It is the path of total and true love. It is a love for Yahweh that is supposed to saturate our being, our entire heart, our entire strength, our entire life our entire mind, dominating all other loves in our life. This love of our creator is distinguished above all other loves.

There has to be levels of love or there is chaos and agony in our lives. If a spouse loves their children more than their spouse the automatic result is suffering, a lot of it. If a spouse loves their parents more than their husband or wife, this imbalances causes heart-ache and misery. There are appropriate degrees of love. However the love of our Heavenly Father must be greater than all other loves. This is the only path to true happiness and fulfilment for eternal joy. This is why when Christ tells us that the greatest of all commandments should be understood as, when Jesus answered him the first of all commandments is Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might,with all your strength, this is the first commandment.

One of the features of immortalisation will be that the bride of the Messiah. who are also the children of Yahweh, will very appropriately get a new name. And it should be understood that we don’t have the capacity to even imagine how wonderful it will be to inherit the nature of God. We read this in 1 Cor 2:9. But as it is written, Eye has not seen nor ear heard neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. And Paul is quoting here from Isa 64.

Note again the distinction that it is those who truly love God that will be rewarded beyond our wildest imaginations. The gulf between mortality and immortality is also the gulf between finite and infinite. The very limited cursed mortal mind cannot comprehend infinity, that God never had a beginning, will never have an ending. However, we can imagine some of the benefits of being blessed with the divine nature as they are described in Scripture.

What limits us now is the curse of sin and death. That is why every death occurs, why every disease is separate, why we feel pain, why we cry, why we get tired, and need the renewal of sleep and rest. The issues of heart disease, cancer, leprosy, organ failure, head trauma are all symptoms of the real problem of the curse of sin and death, which was the righteous judgment for mankind’s corruption of the previously “very good” creative order by contradicting our Creator’s righteousness.

These effects of sin, death, disease, suffering, pain, sorrow, decay, are certainly not the direct result of our personal sins for which we individually bear guilt and are required to pursue repentance, if that were the case the question about why babies die and stay dead would actually become a legitimate question when sin and all its effects are eclipsed in the mortal bodies of the saints through either, immortalisation or death, all the effects of sin are eliminated. The disease and suffering and tears and danger potential and weariness, and fear of death, are also eliminated.

A validating issue of this understanding that all suffering is the result of sin, corrupting a previously “very good” creative order would be the prophesied change in that natural order during the millennial kingdom. This is due to the prophesied chaining of Satan – the devil, the serpent – the dragon, Rev 20, the scriptural representations of Sin in its various application of sin-nature, sin-transgressions, the corporate and political applications of the dragon. When these are chained in the bottomless pit, there is a corresponding rest from the physical effects of sin in the context of the natural order. While we will consider this more extensively, the millennial sabbath rest from sin includes the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, mortal life being extended to a degree whereby a person dying at 100 years old will be considered equivalent to a child. Dangerous carnivores becoming harmless herbivores, like lions and bears and poisonous reptiles, they will become harmless. Military weapons being reforged into agricultural tools, agricultural bounty. A restraining of sin in all of its applications results in a corresponding restraint of the effects of sin.

Sin and the effects of sin are bound together. However, we should never presume that suffering is the exclusive result of transgressional sin, that other category of sin. That misunderstanding would lead to the same mistake made by Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, the mistake of “exact retribution,” that what we experience in life has to be a direct result of our individual wickedness or righteousness. If that were the case, we would have to conclude that Job, Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul, even Jesus Christ had to be wicked men due to the level of suffering each experienced.

Mankind was not created in a mortal condition. That imposed mortality was the result, a judgment, a righteous judgment, for Adam’s sin, that corrupted a previously “very good” creative order. This is why we are told that death came by man, Adam, just as resurrection comes by man, Jesus.

This is why we are told “the sting of death is sin.” This is why we are told that “By one man sin entered the world and death by sin,” and why we are told “The wages of sin is death.” Those in our community who are now opposing this historical understanding of our Creator’s righteousness by promoting the exclusive understanding of sin being only “transgressions of the law” are denying the righteousness of God in demanding death for sin, and contradicting our Creator’s righteousness in requiring all the curses imposed for Adam and Eve’s sin in Eden, when that previously “very good” creative order was dramatically down-graded.

This eliminating of the curse of sin and death in our bodies upon immortalisation should be understood in the framework of the concept of atonement, which means “to cover.” Therefore the body of flesh is part of the structure of the immortal body as that is what is covered or atoned by the spirit nature. Heaven nature is added to earth-nature. It isn’t a replacement, it is a covering, an atonement.

Unfortunately sometimes we may have heard or read some oddly prominent speakers in our community suggest that atonement is exclusively about forgiveness and not the covering of our cursed nature with the blessed nature of our Creator. This has been the case in recent books, magazine articles, Bible School presentations, Study weekend presentations over the last few years in our community.

That limitation would be absolutely impossible. Under divine Law, atonement was demanded even when there had been nothing done that required forgiveness. There were atonement offerings God demanded where there had been no guilt during the Mosaic age. Therefore how can anyone intelligently limit the concept of atonement strictly to forgiveness. For example a sin offering was demanded for a mother giving birth to a child for the purpose of her own atonement, and yet it is a righteous act for a mother to give birth, as it fulfilled the divine command to replenish the earth.

God demanded the altar of burnt offering have an atonement made for it, through seven days of sin offerings before it could be used for God’s people. A bronze appliance certainly doesn’t need forgiveness, but God demanded an atonement ritual.

Obviously God does not limit the concept of atonement strictly to forgiveness. By God’s law, even a house that was found to be leprous, had to have an atonement procedure for that building. Obviously buildings cannot sin against God and buildings certainly don’t need forgiveness. There was no guilt, no transgression that needed forgiveness but there still had to be an atonement.

The subject of atonement is far larger than simply the single aspect of forgiveness, as some speakers and writers in our community have been suggesting. Limiting atonement to exclusively forgiveness initiates a dangerous and leavenous progression of thought, and just as any over-simplification of any of the dual aspects of each divine principle.

Although we have a number of descriptions of what it will be like to be blessed with the divine nature of immortality, we only have one human being that we can look to who has experienced this transition from cursed mortal nature to blessed immortal nature. We can observe that the immortalised Jesus Christ was not subject to the creational limitations to which we are currently subject.

Jesus was not limited by space or substance, he appeared to his disciples in a locked room. Neither the physical nature of walls, nor the limitations of space, could constrain our immortal king. When he left 40 days after his resurrection, he simply rose into the cloud, clearly not being limited by the creational rule of gravity. The other two basic components of the universe besides matter and space, are time and energy. An immortal is obviously not constrained by time as that is the nature of the term, “im-mortal.”

In reference to energy we know that Jesus has been given authority over all creation. He will command various features of creation to battle the Gogian gang of 6 murdering the Jews at Jerusalem. He will command earthquakes, storms, lightning, volcanoes and disease. All of these features of creation will obey our king’s commands, in somewhat the same sense that his father created these features of creation by simply commanding them to appear. Let there be, a light to be the day a light to rule the night. Let there be herb yielding seed. Let the earth bring forth living creatures, etc, etc. With the singular exception of mankind, Adam and Eve, human beings were not simply verbally ordered into existence. We were crafted from 2 components, the dust of the earth and the breath from heaven. Just as this was the original divinely, “very good” state it will be again, this marriage of heaven and earth. It was corrupted by the introduction of sin, requiring the righteous judgment of death. Our shamefully naked before God, unclean, sin-cursed bodies, will be covered with that spirit-nature from heaven, what Jesus defines to Nicodemus as becoming “like the wind,” promised in that breath of heaven that filled the lungs of Adam.

Salvation is not spirit replacing flesh, it is spirit covering flesh, atoning flesh. Unlike our current cursed mortal nature, the immortal nature of our Messiah is not limited by the natural order, by space, time matter or energy.

Another feature of immortality we can see in our Messiah is that despite not being limited by the necessity for food and drink, that we can still enjoy these pleasures. In order to prove his substance after his resurrection, Christ asked for food, to demonstrate he was not a ghost. He describes himself as flesh and bone, this is highly significant. For example Luke 24 starting at v36, we read, “And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are you troubled, why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.

And when he had thus spoken he showed them his hands and his feet, and while they yet believed not for joy and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb and he took it and did eat before them.”

Part of the problem in dealing with all forms of apostasy is that there is usually a shred of truth to the misunderstandings. That shred becomes exaggerated into the entire understanding, making mountains out of mole hills. Or what Jesus describes to the enlightened community during his ministry as “straining at a gnat, but swallowing a camel.” The immortalised are not ghosts as Jesus pointed out. His immortalisation did include a construction of flesh and bone. Not flesh and blood, because “flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom.” We read this in 1 Cor 15:50. Paul writes, “Now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Well we are going to have to pick up on this subject in our next class, this subject of the construction of the immortal saints as flesh and bone, but completely absent of blood.

Transcription by Fay Berry, 2018.