14. Class 14 – Visions of the Kingdom Age by Jim Dillingham.

14. Class 14 – Visions of the Kingdom Age by Jim Dillingham.

This is the 14th class in the series entitled Visions of the Kingdom Age, as presented to the Cranston, Rhode Island ecclesia, beginning in 2014.

In our considerations concerning the transition from mortal to immortal nature in our previous class, we noted that flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom, but flesh and bone does inherit the kingdom. Jesus testified to his disciples after to his resurrection to immortality, that he was not a ghost, but he was flesh and bone, yet we know from 1 Cor 15 that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. We know that our bodies, flesh and bone, will be redeemed.

We read in Rom 8 starting in v20 “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself, also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now, not only they but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

In this class we are going to have quite a number of bible references. This issue of flesh and bone as opposed to flesh and blood, invites our examination of a very extensive theme throughout scripture. The many divine rituals and references highlighting “blood.” In Luke 24 starting at v 37 we read, But they were terrified and affrighted and supposed they had seen a spirit, and he said unto them. Why are ye troubled and 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.

Jesus declares himself in his immortalised state, to have flesh and bones. Interestingly, this combination of flesh and bones is how the ecclesia’s relationship to Jesus Christ is defined. Let’s look at Eph 5, starting at v 30, For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the ecclesia.

Flesh and bones. This is what Adam declared when he was presented with his wife, in Gen 2 and beginning at v 23, And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Interestingly, the Passover meal was to be eaten as “flesh and bone” but without “blood.” Let’s go to Ex 12 and look at v 46. In one house shall it be eaten, thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house, neither shall ye break a bone thereof.

Now we know the blood was supposed to be eliminated from the consumption of the Passover lamb because of the law that God had instituted when he gave permission to mankind to eat the flesh of animals. This is from Gen 9 when he addressed Noah. Gen 9 starting at v 3, Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things, but flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Just as the Passover lamb had to be roasted without blood, and without breaking a bone, Jesus the antitypical Passover lamb was not to have a broken bone.

We read in Jn 19:36, For these things were done that the scriptures should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And all of that is basically referring to one place in Psa 22:17, I may tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. And Psa 34 starting at v 19, Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.

This “unbroken” bone status, combined with the elimination of blood is a very, very significant observation. Jesus defines the memorial bread instituted at Passover as “his body,” and the wine as “his blood.” One of the places that we read this is Matt 26 and beginning at v 26, And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and brake it and gave it to his disciples and said, Take eat. This is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the New Testament, or covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. That memorial bread represents our Messiah’s body.

Paul defines Christ as our Passover in 1 Cor 5. We are instructed to break that bread, yet the pattern was not to brake a single bone of the Passover lamb’s body. Additionally, the standard rule since the flood has been, “Don’t eat blood.” Yet we are instructed to drink the wine representing the blood of our Messiah, yet this “no blood” consumption law was confirmed in the Kingdom laws that God gave through Moses to be observed in that first kingdom age. We read this in Lev 17 starting at v 10, Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn among them that eats any manner of blood, I will set my face against that soul that eats blood and I will cut him off from among his people, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul, for the life. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourns among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel or of the strangers that sojourn among you which hunts and catches any beast or fowl that may be eaten, he shall even pour out the blood thereof and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh, the blood of it is for the life thereof. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, You shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh for the life of all flesh is in the blood thereof. Whosoever eats it shall be cut off.

The life of the flesh is in the blood. The blood was not to be eaten, it had to be poured out at the altar, that Christ-altar. This tells us that we are not supposed to be life-consumers, but to live sacrificially. We don’t eat blood we don’t eat life. We pour our lives out at the foot of that Christ-altar, at the feet of our Messiah. We read about both of these issues, what not to do with the blood and what to do with the blood, in Deut 12 starting at v23. Only be sure that thou eat not the blood, for the blood is the life, and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat it, thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it that it might go well with you and with thy children after thee when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. Only the holy things which thou hast and thy vows thou shalt take and go unto the place where the Lord shall choose and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh.

Blood was never, ever to be eaten by the terms of the Kingdom Law. Even extending back to the flood when man was first permitted to eat animal flesh. Additionally there are blood handling issues that are separated according to the distinction of an animal’s holiness status. This issue further emphasises the scriptural and creational “blood” theme.

There were 2 primary categories of animals, the divinely clean and the divinely unclean. The divinely clean animals qualified as being part of the animal diet of the enlightened community. Eating a divinely unclean animal would contradict the holiness status of the enlightened community. This holiness status was the focus in relation to the flesh diet of the enlightened community. This issue is made very clear by God at the conclusion of the instructions concerning what constituted clean animals, that’s in Lev 11, but we are going to pick up at v45, where we read, For I am the Lord that brings you up out of the Land of Egypt to be your God, you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. This is the law of the beasts and of the fowl, of every living creature that moves in the waters and of every creature that creeps upon to earth, to make a difference between the unclean and the clean, between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.

Physical holiness was demanded, not just behavioural holiness. This is a massively significant issue that has a great deal to do with the signature doctrine of the anti-Christ system prophesied by John, and has always been a challenging problem for the enlightened community since then, and very definitely for this last generation of the ecclesial age. As we have repeatedly noted, that signature doctrine is the denial of the flesh of Christ, an issue that threatens our enlightened community today with the “clean flesh” teachings and claims that “there is no sin in the flesh” as was wisely required in the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith, as well as the false teaching that “atonement is only about forgiveness and has nothing to do with our hopeful change in nature.”

Physical holiness as well as behavioural holiness was demanded by our Creator during that first kingdom age. We hope to participate in the restored kingdom age. We had better respect this issue of physical holiness that is emphasised by the clean or unclean status of animals and highlighted by the handling of the blood, therefore the life of these two divinely separated categories.

This Scriptural blood trail explains the distinction between clean animals that were acceptable as sacrifices at the Christ-altar and the clean animals that were never acceptable at the Christ-altar but could qualify as part of the diet of the enlightened community without jeopardising their holiness status before God. As we have just read in Lev 17 and Deut 12, The blood, therefore representing the life, of a sacrificial animal had to be poured out at the altar, but the blood, the life of a wild, undomesticated, clean animal, had to be buried in the dust.

It is obvious that animals are scripturally used to represent people. The animal altar offerings, the red heifer, the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus is the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” and of course the beast-insanity of King Nebuchadnezzar that he suffered for over 7 times, projecting how mankind would suffer the beast-insanity of an uncircumcised heart for 7 divine days of 1000 years each before that beast-insanity would be eliminated. Very, very obviously, God parallels people to animals in his expressions.

There are 4 categories of people that are identified by their blood status. The vast majority of mankind are identified by the unclean beasts under the laws of the kingdom of God. There were no blood requirements for these unclean animals whatsoever. They could not be killed for food. The diet limitations imposed by God during that 1st kingdom age were designed to teach the enlightened community, the Christadelphians of that age, about the physical application of holiness.

The unclean beasts and fowl and sea life, that would contradict God’s holiness, if consumed, had no distinction for the handling of its blood. That life, the life of the unenlightened, is not consequential to the Creator. Their death is forever. They will not rise for judgment. In fact, this is exactly the point that Solomon makes in Ecc 3 where we read, starting at v18. I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them and that they might see, that they themselves are beasts. Just an aside, “sons of men” are not the “sons of God.” The “sons of men” are the unenlightened, the “sons of God” are the enlightened community. V 19, For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts. Even one thing befalleth them, as one dies, so dies the other. Yeah, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast, for all is vanity, all go to one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

The sons of men die exactly like a beast, but this is not true of the sons of God, representing the enlightened community, we do not die like beasts that will never rise again. That “forever” death is the fate of the unclean that were forbidden to the enlightened community to use as part of their diet, as that would constitute a contradiction of the righteousness of our Creator’s holiness. This is why God depicts the 4 unenlightened military forces that would defeat and control Israel as unclean beasts, the lion with plucked off wings, representing the Babylonians, the Persian bear, the 4-headed Greek leopard, and the Roman dragon. This is why Nebuchadnezzar was humbled by that beast-insanity for 7 times, for his refusal to recognise the Creator.

The 2nd and 3rd categories of animals distinguished by blood-handling would both be clean animals, both of them would be clean, that were divinely permitted to eat under the laws of the kingdom of God without jeopardising one’s status of holiness.

There were 2 separate categories of these clean animals on the basis of the blood-handling laws. Both of these divinely categorised animals represent the enlightened community. Their blood, their life, matters by divine standards, unlike the blood of the unclean beasts, representing unenlightened mankind. The 1st of the 2 categories of clean animals were the wild undomesticated animals that did constitute a legitimate diet option without again jeopardising the physical holiness status of the enlightened community, but the blood of those specific animals was bound to the dust, and therefore the curse of the dust. That blood had to be poured out into the dust and covered in dust.

Now this is an obvious message declaring that the life of the enlightened rejector was bound to the curse of the dust. Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. That wild life that is clean by God’s terms but not obediently poured out at the Christ-altar is bound to that curse of the dust, that same final destination of the unenlightened community, but with one distinction, there is an accountability to divine vindication in relation to any life that is divinely clean. Similarly, the life of that enlightened-rejector does not die like the beast, like the sons of man, that life will rise again to answer to Jesus Christ for rejecting the humbling authority of the altar, and selfishly choosing its own rebellious path of its self-indulgent life, as opposed to recognising and submitting to the reality of the righteousness, the right-ness of the Creator.

The blood of that 2nd clean animal distinction, those highly appropriate 8 categories of domesticated animals, that were welcomed at the altar, represent the enlightened community that has, at least committed itself to pour out their life at the Messiah-altar. Now 8 as we have noted before is the number of our Saviour, the number of salvation, of immortality. Those 8 sacrificial animals were the male and female bovine, in other words, the bullock and the heifer, the male and female goat, the male and female sheep and the two birds that were never distinguished by gender, that could be the turtle doves or the pigeons. The blood of those 8 categories were bound to the altar and the tabernacle. These domesticated service animals represent the enlightened community that has gone to that 2nd stage, the stage beyond enlightenment. They have obediently submitted their lives, their blood, to the authority of the altar.

These are those who have not simply been enlightened, but committed in that 2nd of the 3 stages in the development of the saints. Again those 3 stages are 1) enlightenment, 2) commitment and 3) performance.

The enlightened-rejector only satisfies the 1st stage.

The enlightened acceptor has chosen to pursue that righteousness of our Creator.

The 3rd stage is performance, not simply being exposed to the features of our Creator’s righteousness, and not simply choosing, that righteousness as in the baptism ritual of our ecclesial age, but also performing, that divine right-ness, in our mind, our words and our deeds.

There is a 4th category of animal representatives for people, but in this category, there is no blood whatsoever. This would be the Cherubim with their lion, bullock, eagle and human faces and 4 wings. It would be the Seraphim from Isaiah 6, that John describes as the future glory of Christ. It would be the four “living creatures” described in Rev 4 and 5 who declare that they have been redeemed by the lamb from every kindred, tongue, people and nation, and will reign as king-priests over the earth. These animal categories all represent the immortalised saints and Christ. These symbolic animals have no blood whatsoever, unlike the last 3 categories.

We know they have no blood, not simply because their blood is not mentioned, but because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, of which those 4 living creatures claim they will serve as king-priests. These animals, symbolic of the immortalised saints, have poured out their blood, their life, sacrifically, draining their lives at the feet of the Christ-altar during their mortal lives, so that when they stand before Christ in judgment, they will be “bloodless” and therefore qualify for consideration for the gift of immortality, when flesh and bone will be covered, atoned with immortality. When corruptible will put on incorruptibility.

This is also how we know that blood does not represent life in general, but mortal life, specifically. There are 4 categories of representative animals presented throughout the 2 avenues of our Creator’s testimony, the Bible and creation. These 4 categories are distinguished by the blood. The unenlightened hordes of humanity are the unclean beasts whose blood is insignificant. The enlightened community is separated into 2 categories. The large category of clean but non-sacrificial wild animals whose blood had to be poured into and covered by dust, and secondly, the 8 divisions of clean domesticated sacrificial animals whose blood had to be poured out, sprinkled, spattered, smeared at the altar and in the tabernacle.

The 4th category is the immortalised saints having no blood, whatsoever. Now this “blood” theme is highly significant when we come to the memorial service where we drink the blood of Christ, we eat the broken body of Christ. These were both always forbidden, consuming blood and breaking any bone of the Passover lamb, or the son of God, but now they are required, in fact, this very issue drove away Christadelphians from Jesus Christ during his ministry, due to their incapacity to understand this issue.

We read this account in Jn 6 beginning at v 50 and we will go to 56 and pick up at 60 and go to 66. We read, This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I, this is Jesus speaking, of course, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world. And the Jews therefore strove among themselves saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat. Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.

Dropping down to v 60, Many therefore of his disciples when they had heard this, said, This, is an hard saying, who can hear it. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it he said unto them, Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before? Basically he is saying just in explanation, You don’t understand the bread and the wine refers to my death and resurrection, how are you going to understand when the death and resurrection really happens? What if you see the son of man ascend up from the grave to the living where he was before, that is what he is saying there.

Let’s continue in v 63, It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life, but there are some of you that believe not. Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of the Father.

From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Well, obviously, we need to understand these issues. The divine principles have always been exactly the same. The rituals change, the laws change, but the principles that these rituals and laws shadow, never change. This is the key to beginning to understand why an immortal can still be understood as flesh and bone, but never flesh and blood.

But a participant in the resurrection to immortality is not a flesh creature as we think of flesh, well, obviously, as the flesh creatures we are intimately familiar with are constrained by space, time, matter and energy. Those 4 basic components of the universe that each have 3 subdivisions, perfectly mirroring the wilderness encampment as we reviewed several months ago.

The immortalised Jesus Christ was not constrained by those 4 basic universe building blocks. It is this absence of the blood that is quite significant. This is one of those “silent shouts” highlighting divine truths and principles that are veiled for the exclusive availability of those within the enlightened community, possessing “hearing ears,” and “seeing eyes,” the circumcised in heart, those 8 categories of sacrificial animals as opposed to the many clean animals whose blood was not offered at the altar.

The blood of Christ is different from the forbidden blood. The enlightened community could not eat blood until it came to the immortal life of our Messiah, the life that was flawlessly, and completely poured out sacrificially and lovingly in demonstrating his Father’s righteousness. That is the life, the blood, that memorial wine, that life-blood we are commanded to eat.

The physical pattern and the spiritual exhortation is not to eat the blood. Not to eat life, not to be a consumer of mortal life, not to be indulgent, enjoying all that life has to offer. The life-style of one who loves God, and is not rebellious will be to pour out their life, their blood, at the altar. To pour out their life at the feet of the Christ-altar. We do drink His blood, despite kingdom laws demand that no blood be consumed, as that is the life we are directed to pursue. The life sacrificially projecting our Creator’s righteousness, His right-ness, and not our own glory. Not a life of indulgence or a life of consumption, not eating the blood. This is why flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom but flesh and bone does inherit immortality, as that bloodless frame is what is covered by immortality, atoned by immortality, when we are invited to inherit the kingdom. As Paul expresses it as mortality being swallowed up by life, and death being swallowed up in victory.

This is an enveloping of substance, not a completely new construction divorced from its previous existence, like all the expressions of paganism and Christianity and Islam which developed from the original serpent-lie that “we don’t really die.” This is also when it is so dangerous when we read and hear respected Christadelphian brethren declaring that “atonement has nothing to do with a change in nature, that atonement has to be exclusively identified with forgiveness.”

This denial of the flesh of Christ, that sin-nature, whose power was broken in the death of our Messiah is the first step in the heart-directed progression that leads to the same ultimate conclusions as all the apostate Christian religions. These claims of sin only being transgressional, of Atonement only meaning forgiveness, and the distancing of both sin and holiness from having any physical application, are very dangerous lies. Highly disrespectful of the terms of our Creator’s righteousness, that absolutely requires a physical identification with both the principle of sin and the principle of holiness.

Blood is a defining feature of atonement as we read from the references in this class, a complete, as opposed to a partial, atonement, is our desperate hope. Pouring out our own blood while consuming our Messiah’s blood, so that we might be saved, to be covered, atoned, with the covering of the divine nature so that we might no longer be naked before God as Paul expresses the process of salvation in 2 Cor 5. To obtain that level of physical holiness where the principles of decay can no longer touch us. That divine nature of our Heavenly Father.

In addition to partaking of that memorial wine, our Messiah’s blood, we also, and previously consuming that blood, wine, we have to eat the broken bread. That “breaking” of the bread, representing our Messiah’s flesh, his body, is another one of those “silent shouts” in scripture, designed only for those with “hearing ears” within the enlightened community.

Something was broken in the flesh, the body of our Messiah, and Yahweh doesn’t want us tripping over the mistake that the breaking of the bread is merely an indication of Christ’s broken body and nothing else.

God wouldn’t allow that body to be broken. Pierced, yes. Broken, no. However, that is exactly how this bread is described, 1 Cor 11:24, frequently this is the reference that’s read on a Sunday morning for the memorial service. When he had given thanks he brake it and said, Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Why? What was broken in the body of Jesus that God didn’t want us to mistake with our thoughts possibly being diverted by the simplicity of just a broken bone.

Surely this breaking of the bread is significant as we see the precedent all through Scripture, in the context of our Messiah. Such as that vail, separating the Temple holy chamber from the most Holy was torn in 2 from heaven to earth, immediately, upon the death of our Messiah. And Heb 10:19-20, tells us that vail represents the flesh of Christ, just like the memorial bread that is broken before being eaten.

The cleaving of the Red Sea upon exiting Egypt projects a similar issue, as does the cleaving of the Jordan River to enter the promised land. We are told that when Moses struck the rock at Rephidim to get water to save Israel, that this rock clave, just like the breaking of the memorial bread. This cleaving aspect is defined, well, you can reference it in Isa 48:21 and also in Psa 78:15. We are told in 1 Cor 10 that this rock also projected our Messiah. Clearly this cleaving, this breaking of our Messiah in the process of salvation, is emphasised repeatedly with mounting intensity, for those with “hearing ears.”

Even the cloven feet, which is the 3rd qualifying issue of a clean animal, is a related issue. So what was broken, what was broken, in the unbroken body of our Messiah that is being silently shouted through the intentional complexity of our creator’s testimony? It was the power of sin that was broken in the flesh of our Messiah at his death.

It is sin that holds the power of death. It is our sin-nature that powers decay. Sin serves as the sting of death. The wages of sin is death. But, since our Messiah broke the power of sin through his death, this is why death could not hold him. The power of sin had been broken in the death of our Messiah, which is why we are commanded to remember the death of Jesus by partaking of the memorial service, not his life, but his death. It is sin that has the power of death. Death was not a reality in the order of creation before Adam’s and Eve’s sin corrupted all of creation. That power of sin was broken through the death of our Messiah, validating the righteousness of his Father’s judgment of death for sin.

We’ve looked at this issue before in the context of the 3 development stages, maturing development stages, of sin, described in Jas 1, starting at v 14. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived it brings forth sin, and sin when it is finished, brings forth death.

No 1 is being tempted, this is that guilt-free sin-nature, that temptation issuing from within as well as without, but even when it is without it is triggering that lust within. That is our sin-nature for which we bear no sin whatsoever.

No 2, that is transgressional sin when that lust conceives and gives birth to a sin that requires repentance.

And the 3rd of course is death.

Well, Jesus experienced the 1st, that guilt-free category of sin, prompting temptations, generated from within our sin-producing and sin-cursed nature. Well Jesus also experienced the 3rd sin maturing stage of death, without ever experiencing the 2nd, that transgressional sin. Jesus broke the power of sin, invalidating the right-ness of his Father’s judgment of death for sin, when that “very good” creative order was corrupted by the introduction of sin. The exact same divine righteousness demonstrated in baptism. Christ’s baptism and every baptism since then, performed to identify with the death and the resurrection of our Messiah.

So we break the bread to recognise the breaking of the power of sin in the technically unbroken body of Jesus. However, that transgression-free status of our Messiah at his death, simply qualified Jesus to come back from the dead. It was the additional feature, that the entire life of Jesus, had been a validation of his Father’s righteousness that qualified Jesus for immortalisation, not just the absence of transgressional sin. It was both issues. Not just the absence of transgressional sin but also the presence of righteousness. There is more to atonement on every level, than just the forgiveness of sins.

We have to put it all in context together. It is the flesh of Christ that is so incredibly significant in understanding our own path of salvation and the basis by which we can be saved, as well as the basis by which we can be forgiven our sins, which is only part of being saved. It is just like Jesus, we also need to personally demonstrate God’s righteousness in our lives as well as reconciling sin.

The vail that separated the holy chamber from the most holy chamber, is defined, as we have noted in Heb 10:19-20, as the flesh of Christ. That was the 1st of the 3 stages where the blood of the sin offering for the High Priest and the nation was spattered 7 times.

The 2nd stage was when that blood was smeared on the 4 horns of the incense altar.

The 3rd and last stage was when a single, and the most substantial application of the blood, was poured out at the foot of the bronze altar in the court yard. 12 applications of blood at 3 stations.

The 1st station was the vail, representing the flesh of our Messiah. This is the blood-spattered vail that was torn from heaven and earth immediately upon the death of our Messiah, just as we break the bread of his flesh in a memorial service, eating it with the spattered-blood represented by the wine. As we have noted in the past, it is the denial of this issue of the flesh, the sin-cursed flesh-nature of our Messiah, that guilt-free 2nd category of sin, that flesh where the power of sin was broken and then clothed with immortality, was prophesied as being the actual signature doctrine of the apostasy. We have read this before in 1 Jn 4, 2 Jn v7, Hereby know ye the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit, or every teaching as it indicates, that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is not of God. And this is the spirit of anti-Christ where if you have heard that it should come, and even now, already, is it in the world. And 2 Jn, For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti-Christ, look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought.

So let’s restate this basic understanding that has so much to do with the flesh-body being the skeletal structure of the immortalised saints. That bread is broken but not a single bone of our Messiah’s body was broken to emphasise the understanding that something else in our Messiah’s flesh was broken besides the simple structure of the chemical combination of his matter.

It was the power of sin that was broken in his body. This is why we break the bread. When Christianity maintains that Jesus wasn’t flesh at all, that he was “a spirit creature parading around in the disguise of a flesh body,” they contradicted the effectiveness of his death, making it all about themselves and not about our Creator’s righteousness.

They make the death of Jesus meaningless, divorcing it from the righteousness of our Creator. That right judgement of death for sin in Eden, when his righteousness was first contradicted in this creation project that began almost 6000 years ago. And when some outspoken Christadelphians inappropriately promote the distortion of sin as being “nothing but the guilty transgressions of the Law,” promoting the concept of “clean flesh,” as is being done in many places in the Christadelphian community today, they ultimately teach the exact same distortion as the trinity, but only in its beginning, leavening stage, the denial of the lesson of the flesh of our Messiah and how he broke the power of sin in his death in his body, thereby reconciling, but not saving the faithful as we know from Rom 5:10, For If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

As significant as our Messiah’s death was it was not enough. We also are dependent on his resurrection for our own salvation. We are dependent on both his absence of guilty sin, and his presence of perfect righteousness. Our hope of inheriting an immortal nature is described as still being flesh and bone, but definitely not flesh and blood.

Our body will be saved as we know from Rom 8:22-23 with reference to the redemption of our body. The saints will be immortalised flesh and bone, not ghosts, not spirits, although the body of an immortal will not be limited by space, energy, time or matter.

Salvation is a covering, not an uncovering as promoted by apostate Christianity, but a covering of our nature, an atonement. So our bodies are saved, if we are accepted by Jesus Christ to inherit the kingdom. Flesh and bone that will be covered by immortality, a reward, a citizenship that is reserved for us in heaven and brought to the saints by Jesus Christ.

Called mansions by Jesus in Jn 14. Called our heavenly citizenship as we’ve noted in Phil 3 by Paul, called heavenly tabernacles made without hands in 2 Cor 5 by Paul.

In our next class we will begin to understand the physical benefits of that spirit-nature, the blessings of immortality.

Transcription by Fay Berry 2018.