Class 4. – Visions of the Kingdom Age – James Dillingham for Cranston Rhode Island Snr SS.

Class 4. – Visions of the Kingdom Age – James Dillingham for Cranston Rhode Island Snr SS.

The intentional complexity of all divine communications.

Now we are going to employ another tool of divine communication, in order to insure our confidence in our understandings of the two separate resurrection applications of a resurrection of the just and unjust from death to mortality preceding judgment as well as the separately expressed resurrection from mortality to immortality only for the just… following judgment.
You may recall earlier this year when I presented a series of three classes here in Cranston which I explained constituted the greatest possible lesson that I personally have the capacity to offer anyone… this is the lesson of the intentional complexity of all divine communications and why that intentional complexity is the invariable divine communication policy. I just want us to remember a couple of points from those classes.

1. That when something is divinely true there will be endless ways to validate that truth from many independent but always complimentary directions.

2. That there are two basic forms of direct divine communication.

These are the written word of God and the spoken word of God. The features of creation qualify as a component of the spoken word of God, as verbal commands constituted the creative procedure. The Creator verbally summoned everything into existence over the course of 6 evenings and mornings. The features and relationships demonstrated in creation testify of the eternal truths and principles of our Creator.

One form of divine expression cannot contradict another form of divine expression… or we have to understand our Creator to be inconsistent, confused or a liar, which is not possible. Therefore everything in creation, from the vastness of the universe down to atomic structure… all testify harmoniously to these truths and principles we are tasked to understand, appreciate above everything else in our lives and demonstrate by thought, word and deed.

You may also recall a foundational reference we reviewed, which has a direct relationship to our current subject of the terms for resurrection and judgment.

Rom 1: 18-20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Now the only people who can actually ‘hold’ the truth would have to be the enlightened. Therefore this cautionary statement is not being addressed to pagans or christians or moslems of atheists or any other segment of the unenlightened community.

This warning is addressed specifically to us… the enlightened community. We are being warned that God’s wrath will be applied to those who hold the truth, but not in righteousness. The absence of any excuse available to those who hold that truth without righteousness… is validated by the things that have been made by God… in other words – all of creation.
The terms of creation offer an ocean of veiled evidence… what is described here as the invisible things from creation…. it is another form of proof for those who hold God’s truth in any way at all… like ourselves.
So we are going to begin to engage this divine invitation to listen to the witness of creation’s testimony … specifically in reference to the two resurrection categories.
The principle of resurrection is a direct contradiction to the original serpent lie that saturates the religions and heart generated superstitions of the children of men… as opposed to the children of God (a title for which we qualify now in a limited fashion but after immortalization with a far more comprehensive application).

The serpent lie was a challenge to the right-ness, the righteousness of the Creator. The serpent testified that Eve and Adam would not really die and that by doing exactly what they were told not to do they would become just like God.

All the foolishness about immortal souls and ghosts and disease inflicting demons and communicators with the spirits of the dead… are all extensions of that original serpent lie. If these imaginations from our serpent based thought process were actually valid the concept of resurrection would be a joke.

If we cannot die then why would there be a resurrection to bring us back to life? The presumption that we already possess the immortal nature of our Creator and that we can still sin without ever really dying is an incredible insult to the holy nature of our Creator.

It presumes that sin is just as eternal as righteousness and that God’s nature is inherently unclean…. that immortal beings actually have the capacity to sin, to contradict the Creator’s righteousness despite sharing His nature.

The chapter we read at every baptism concludes with the statement: The wages of sin is death. Sin must die. Sin -contradictions to our Creator’s righteousness – must end.

Sin is not forever. Suggesting that immortal souls can sin without dying or immortal angels can sin without dying declares our Creator to be a liar and a deceiver.
Resurrection is the divine solution to the curse of death. The hope of participating in the resurrection from the dead is testified very loudly to the whole world every single day… by the things that have been made. We wake up from a death-like sleep.
Death is constantly defined throughout scripture as sleeping.
Deut 31: 16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.

The ancestors (“fathers”) of Moses were all dead. Moses was 120 years old on the day that he died… the day that God said he would sleep with his fathers. God Himself calls death a ‘sleep’.
In the promises to David we see the same expression being used by God that it would be after the death of David, after he slept with his fathers, that Yahweh would raise up a descendant to David who will establish David’s throne forever 2 Samuel 7:12-14,16

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. 16 And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever

Not only do we see God defining death as sleeping, we also see the promise of David’s resurrection in that his descendant will inherit his throne and establish it … before David, that David would personally witness and experience this… after he died, meaning he would have to wake up from his death sleep.
The son of God does the same thing, uses the same expression… oddly – to the confusion of the enlightened community.
Luke 8:49-55 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. 50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. 51 And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. 52 And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. 53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. 54 And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. 55 And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway:
Jesus commands the little girl to wake up, to rise from her sleep. It does seem a little strange that the enlightened community laughed at this expression, since that expression is used throughout the Old Testament writings.
Jesus uses the same expression in relation to the 3rd person he raises from the dead: Lazarus.

John 11:11-13 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
Both God and Christ consistently define death as sleeping. Two of the highly appropriate 3 people Jesus raises from the dead are defined as being brought back from the dead by being awakened from sleep. Let’s turn our attention from the sleep state to the action of awakening.

As we consider these applications we need to keep one particular understanding in mind. Awakening is the creational testimony for only the 1st category of resurrection, and never the 2nd.

Awakening defines the hope of resurrection from the sleep of death back to mortality… but never the resurrection to immortality from the death cursed state of mortality. That is a completely separate creational parallel.
Daniel 12:1-3 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

The resurrection to mortality is paralleled to awakening from sleep in the dust of the earth. This resurrection is prior to judgment, as we see that following this resurrection some will proceed into everlasting life and some will be shamed with an everlasting contempt. The resurrection to mortality prior to judgment is an awakening… just like over 7 billion people experience every single day.. all over the world, completely deaf to the divine testimony being communicated.
1 Corinthians 15:51-54 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
We aren’t all going to sleep -meaning we aren’t all going to die who are going to experience that 2nd category of resurrection… the resurrection to immortality. That resurrection is not described as an awakening, but as putting on a covering… exactly what we do after we wake up in the morning… we get dressed. This is creation’s testimony for our hope, of being clothed with immortality… the act of covering our created naked form.
Now this creational pattern relationship between waking up and getting dressed in the morning, is another divine expression of the truths and principles of our Creator.

The huge majority of the world experiences this endlessly and obliviously… because they don’t have seeing eyes or hearing ears. They are blind and deaf to divine communications. We can surely see the repeated parallel in scripture between death and sleeping and between the resurrection to mortality and waking up. After all waking up is a return to a former state.

The resurrection to immortality could never qualify as an awakening.

The saints won’t be returning to a state of immortality they had ever enjoyed in the past. That would be a contradiction of God’s testimony. The resurrection to immortality is creationally paralleled to two things…

3. is getting dressed, covering our naked form, what scripture refers to as atonement

4. the 2nd is being born again, a 2nd birth…. being again born into a new state of existence, as opposed to returning to a previous state of existence as in a return to mortal consciousness from mortal unconsciousness as in awakening from sleep… which defines the 1st resurrection category to mortality before judgment.
The creational feature shouting at the enlightened community, those who hold the truth… whether in righteousness or not… is the observation that there is no other form of life, no other species in all creation… that covers its created form. Fish, birds, insects, mammals, reptiles… they do not manufacture or wear clothing…. just human beings, just the one species, the one form of life, into whom the Creator sowed His image and His likeness.

This concept of atonement… covering nakedness … is exclusive to us. We have this divine testimony concerning an awakening to mortality and the covering atonement procedure projecting the resurrection to immortality day after day after day after day… for possibly 30,000 times in our lives… if we get to live to 82 years old, anyway.
The point we are making is that one of the ways we can validate our understanding that there are two separate categories of resurrection is by the testimony of the things that have been made, through the terms of creation which constitute the other avenue of divine communication besides the Bible…. Creation is the spoken word of God, as that is how creation came into existence, through the verbal summons of our Creator.

Creation’s testimony is to offer independent witnesses to each of these two resurrection categories… so if we presume that the term resurrection cannot apply independently and separately to each of these categories… then we are contradicting the divine testimony of creation… the spoken word of God.
We’ve validated the relationship between awakening and the resurrection to mortality prior to judgment. Now let’s demonstrate the pattern of scriptural expressions defining the separate resurrection to immortality as a covering.

Now this is highly significant, as this is an issue that has been under very aggressive attack in the enlightened community over the last few years. Let me quote one recent book published in our communicate entitled Atonement.

“If the doctrine of covering of nature was a crucial part of apostolic teaching, would we not expect a number of unambiguous Scriptural quotations to support these ideas. But the fact is that they are conspicuously absent from the record.”

I hope this sentence is as shocking to you as it was for me, after a brother and sister asked me to review this book for them almost 3 years ago.
How is it possible a respected brother in our community could claim there are no unambiguous Apostolic quotations presenting the understanding that our nature has to be covered? How is it possible almost no one in our community challenged him on such an incredibly absurd and so easily corrected statement… childishly easy?
To use the words of Jesus when he was faced with many situations like this from the Christadelphians of his generation to whom he was commissioned to preach…

Have your never read….

1 Cor 15: 50-54 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
Four times -highly appropriately 4 times – Paul repeats that immortality & incorruption is put on, that immortality is a covering for our mortality and a incorruption is a covering for our corruption. That is how the immortalization process is described… many many times throughout the New Testament… the covering of our mortal nature with immortal nature, incorruptible nature… completely unambiguous. Now, We read these at least twice every year in our daily readings. Why is this so invisible to so many of us?
As clear and unambiguous as that is we can ask on behalf of Jesus, employing his pattern for challenging an incorrect understanding within the enlightened community… have you not read so much as this?

2 Cor 5:1-4 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: 3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. 4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
Our earthly house of this tabernacle is obviously… our mortal bodies. If our mortal bodies die … if our earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved… our comfort is that we have these heavenly tabernacles that we groan to be covered with.. so that mortality might be swallowed up of life…. Just like Paul said to the Hebrews… death is swallowed up in victory. Swallowing up is a similar expression to covering. It is complete envelopment.. as mortality completely disappearing inside immortality, the flesh is swallowed up by the spirit nature…. or victory as Paul expresses it to the Hebrews … or life as he expresses it to the Corinthians.
Paul describes this heavenly provided immortal nature that will swallow up mortality… as a covering. We earnestly desire -we groan- to be “clothed upon” with our house from heaven.

This pre-immortalization nakedness reference brings us right back to the garden of Eden, when Adam & Eve experienced the new shame of nakedness right after corrupting all of a previously very good creative order on the basis of sin, sin is any contradiction of our Creator’s righteousness. That shame of their nakedness instinctively prompted them to seek a covering. Their own covering of the rather imaginative fig leaf aprons were divinely replaced with coverings made from a single animal skin to hide their shame.

This may be the foundational application for the reference in Rev 13:8 to the lamb slain from the foundation of the world… This may have been a lamb slaughtered to provide a covering for their nakedness… projecting – of course – our Messiah whose sacrifice is the precedent for covering our sins and the precedent for the hopeful covering of our mortal nature with immortal nature so that we will no longer be naked before our God, as Paul states.
Salvation should most definitely be understood as a covering, a swallowing up, therefore an atonement. We should remember that the apostasy defines salvation as an uncovering. The presumption of an immortal soul that is uncovered at death, released from its enclosure to enjoy salvation or eternally suffer with condemnation. As in most cases, the heart generated religious teachings of the unenlightened are exactly the opposite from the truth of the matter… as different as flesh and spirit.

When our teachers begin to disassociate salvation with a covering… limiting atonement to nothing more than forgiveness… they are taking baby step after baby step to the eventual conclusion that salvation is an uncovering and not a covering, just like Christianity, Islam, paganism, etc. Our Creator repeatedly presents the concept of Salvation as an addition… not a subtraction… a covering, a swallowing up, an enclosure.
In fact Paul draws from Christ’s lead concerning this understanding of salvation being an enclosure, a tabernacle from heaven… a new place within which to live forever that is brought to us from heaven and added to us.This tabernacle from heaven salvation image is exactly the comforting promise Jesus offered his closest disciples at the last supper.
John 14: 1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

Jesus comforts his disciples although he has to leave, that he will be coming back. While he is gone he will be preparing these heavenly mansions for the faithful. What Jesus does not say is that they will come to him to receive these heavenly mansions.

He says exactly the opposite, that he will come to them that they may be where he is… indicating a state of being as well as geographical coordinates. Jesus repeats this exact same promise in the same terms down in verse 23 of this same chapter.

John 14:23 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, 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.

That English word “abode” is the exact same Greek word that is translated as mansion in verse 2. It is mone. Jesus repeats again that he will come back to the disciples and when he comes back he and his Father will make their abode with the faithful.

This abode constitutes the mansions prepared in heaven, those heavenly tabernacles made without hands Paul mentioned to the Corinthians. Paul was simply employing the exact same precedent used by Jesus with the Apostles that preceded Paul, at that last supper. Instead of mansions in heaven Paul refers to them as tabernacles made without hands brought to us from heaven that cover our divinely shameful nakedness.
Paul expresses this same understanding of heavenly mansions or heavenly tabernacles in a slightly different but complimentary terms to the Philippians. He defines those heavenly mansions and heavenly tabernacles as a heavenly citizenship.

Phil 3:20-21 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

The Greek word translated conversation here is politeuma… indicating a political affiliation… as in a citizenship. Once again Paul tells us Jesus will return to us and when he does the heavenly citizenship, these mansions made in heaven, the tabernacles made in heaven without hands will change our vile body to be fashioned like Christ’s glorious body… like Jesus says in John 14…. He will take us unto himself that we may be where he is… and like Paul says in 2 Cor 5.. these tabernacles made without hands in heaven cover us so that we might be no longer naked… when mortality is swallowed up of life.
All of these expressions that blend so perfectly demonstrate the understanding that the transition into immortality should be understood, this resurrection into immortality… as a covering. It is an enclosure. It is a swallowing up.
Our original point we were highlighting is that when an understanding is right we can validate that truth through endless avenues… as all of our heavenly Father’s expressions have to blend perfectly together.

This covering of our nature aspect of salvation is endlessly projected in the shadows of divine expressions… such as the cloud covering of the rainbowed angel, describing the immortalized saints in the Millennial Kingdom with their cloud covering.

We see the white wedding robe awarded to the bride of Christ that is described as constituting the two necessary righteousness categories… being the righteous deeds of the saints from Rev. 19 and how this white wedding garment is made white in the blood of the lamb, indicating the imputed righteousness awarded on the basis of a real faith, as opposed to nothing more than an unproven confession of faith. The unambiguous descriptions of salvation being a covering of our nature are endless throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
We have to be in Christ… inside him. He is the 3rd and antitypical salvation ark. Just as those 8 people had to be in Noah’s ark, that 1st salvation ark, in order to be saved… and just like the incorruptible manna and incorruptible covenant stones and the resurrection rod of the High Priest had to be inside the golden ark of the covenant… the 2nd salvation ark…. so we have to be within our antitypical salvation ark- Jesus Christ.

He has to cover us completely. We are baptized into Christ. We are exhorted to be in Christ… not outside, not uncovered. And just as both of those first two salvation arks needed a double covering… the pitch and the gold, so we have to be doubly covered in Christ… we need forgiveness and we need cleansing from the unclean condition of sin cursed flesh… the covering of our guilty sins and the covering of our sin cursed nature, for which we bear absolutely no guilt whatsoever.
God’s eternal truths and principles are 3 dimensional. When we have it right, we can validate those truths endlessly from every connection, 3 dimensionally. When we have it wrong… we are going to be blinded to the endless validations of those truths.
We should understand that there are two categories of resurrection and three possible expressions of the term as it is used in scripture… a resurrection of the just and unjust to mortality prior to judgment;

a resurrection to immortality following judgment for the just and thirdly the possibility of expressing resurrection as encompassing the full range from death to immortality.

When we get that wrong, as many in our enlightened community have over the last 130 years or so, serious challenges to our Creator’s righteousness begin to ferment like leaven.

So our point was that these two categories of resurrection are expressed in completely separate but complimentary terms in the creational order. The resurrection to mortality before judgment is repeatedly expressed as an awakening.

The resurrection to immortality is never expressed as an awakening but as getting dressed, as covering our naked form…. which a parallel that is never made to the resurrection to mortality. These are mutually exclusive creational validations for the benefit of those with seeing eyes and hearing ears who can see and hear our Creator’s testimony in the things that have been made.
That second creational feature that is consistently identified with the resurrection to immortality following judgment but never identified with the resurrection to mortality preceding judgment is being born again… a 2nd birth. If we are going to live forever, we will have to be born twice.
Let’s look at the most obvious application of this expression and then work through scripture to see the extent of its application.
John 3:3-10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Apostate Christianity, and sadly – a number of Christadelphians – dramatically minimalize these expressions of Jesus into nothing more than an exhortation to encourage an intellectual and emotional repentance… that being born again is to experience a paradigm shift.

That isn’t what he is saying, although it does have a minimal extended and exhortational application.

The ‘seeing’ of the Kingdom of God that can be realized by someone being born again is not an academic experience but a very intimate experience. This is why Jesus identifies two separate births as being necessary Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Jesus defines those two births as water and spirit and also as flesh and spirit. We are born physically and those who intimately experience the Kingdom of God will also have to be born spiritually.

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Water birth is equivalent to being born of the flesh. This does not represent baptism. it represents coming out of our mother’s womb.

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Spirit birth is another category of birth. Jesus did not say one would have to be born three times in order to see- meaning an intimate participation – in the Kingdom of God.

The two births are flesh and spirit. When Nicodemus… one of the Masters in Israel – one of the respected teachers in the enlightened community – expresses shock at such a claim… Jesus explains that second birth for him and for us… vs 7-8 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Jesus does not say being born of the Spirit is like a mental change. He does not refer to it as a baptism, in any way shape or form. Our Messiah defines that 2nd birth, that spirit birth to becoming like the wind.

That is a creational reference. We know what wind is. We can’t see it but we can feel it’s effects. It is the movement of air. We have gone over this part before in previous classes… both the Greek & Hebrew words for air are also translated as spirit, as in the Holy Spirit of God…. the Holy Air of God… the Holy Wind of God. In order to ‘see’ the Kingdom of God we have to be born a 2nd time… into the divine nature.

But this is not the resurrection to mortality. The resurrection to mortality for the purpose of judgment is never expressed as a rebirth in scripture. That would be an awakening.

This 2nd birth shadow projection is strictly the resurrection to immortality. In our next class we will begin to see even more of the validating depth of this understanding in the scientific features of creation… which is the spoken word of God, as that is how our environment was facilitated almost 6,000 years ago… by the verbal commands of the Creator. That spoken word of the Creator absolutely must perfectly agree with the written word of the Creator, in order to validate His eternal righteousness- His eternal right-ness.
End of Class 4